I didn’t develop up eager for Vienetta, which represented the top of fancy meals for a lot of millennials making an attempt to make sense of the world by way of TV advertisements. That could be as a result of I used to be already stuffed with my very own fancy-enough frozen deal with. By this I imply the frozen cream puffs that my household purchased in huge tubs from Sam’s Membership.
Like Vienetta, frozen cream puffs all the time conferred an air of intellectual tradition to me. They appeared vaguely European, which made them particularly interesting when everybody else’s mother was shopping for Tastykake and Entenmann’s. Even at this time, I affiliate cream puffs extra with the choux problem on The Nice British Bake Off, charming British accents and all, than a typical American dessert, even supposing frozen cream puffs are available right here.
My impression of cream puffs as kinda-fancy didn’t fairly align with how my household tended — or extra precisely, nonetheless have a tendency — to eat them: normally straight from the container, usually whereas watching TV, and nearly all the time slightly frozen. Technically, you’re meant to thaw frozen cream puffs, at which level you may then set them out for a cocktail party or, for those who’re an overachiever, drizzle them with chocolate or caramel.
However {a partially} frozen cream puff isn’t simply handy; it additionally presents the potential for a brand new texture. As an alternative of the thick ooze of thawed crème pâtissière, it provides you one thing akin to a chunk of an ice cream bar that’s been wrapped with a wafer cone. In my view, this texture — not totally frozen, not thawed — is the cream puff’s ideally suited state and the first argument for even shopping for them frozen within the first place.
The advantages of frozen cream puffs transcend texture. As I do know from expertise, they’re ideally suited for a late-night snack, as you may eat them straight out of hand. And since they aren’t thawed, there isn’t a lot to make a large number. On prime of that, cream puffs don’t style fairly as candy once they’re partially frozen, which makes it simpler to eat extra of them.
I can say with certainty that I’m an excellent cook dinner, however I’m removed from an excellent baker; I don’t have the endurance or the precision. That is the place frozen cream puffs present one other reward: They’ve saved me from ever needing to make my very own. For each one who says choux pastry is simple, there’s an individual having a nasty time beneath the Bake-Off tent.
I considered frozen cream puffs once I learn Lottie Hazell’s Piglet, a novel wherein the namesake protagonist duties herself with making three croquembouche — showstopping towers of cream puffs — totally from scratch for her personal wedding ceremony. Spoiler alert: The dessert is a catastrophe, and I discovered myself imagining that at the least a few of Piglet’s issues might have been prevented if she’d simply used frozen cream puffs as an alternative.
All of which is to say: Why would I ever make a cream puff, when the frozen ones are so satisfying simply as they’re?