Chocolate Cream Puffs with Strawberry Truffle Filling

When was the last time you had an indulgent, messy cream puff?  Too long, right?  Time to be a kid again, and take a bite of something jazzed up with chocolate and strawberries! 

This creation of mine was a finalist a few years ago, in the California Strawberry Festival's Berry Off cooking contest.  Cream puffs are super easy to make, so dive in and impress your family and guests!  (This makes 24; cut it in half for a smaller crowd.)

Puffs:
2 Cup boiling water
1 Cup butter
2 Cups flour
1/3 Cup unsweetened cocoa
2 Tbsp. sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
8 eggs

Filling:
2 Cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
2 (8 oz.) pkgs. cream cheese, softened
1 Cup strawberry jam
1 (8 oz.) carton whipped topping (or use real whipped cream)
Powdered sugar, if desired, for dusting
Whole, fresh strawberries, for garnish

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Spray a baking sheet with nonstick spray. In a medium sauce pan, melt butter in boiling water.  Add flour, cocoa, sugar, and salt.  Stir vigorously until it forms a ball.  Remove from heat and cool for 10 minutes.  Beat in eggs, one at a time, beating until smooth after each one.  Drop 1/4 cup of batter for each puff onto greased baking sheet.  Space about 3 inches apart.  Bake for 25-30 minutes.
2. Meanwhile, melt chocolate chips in top of a double boiler (or microwave them 30 seconds at a time and then stir until melted).  In a large bowl beat cream cheese and jam until smooth.  Beat in melted chocolate, then stir in whipped topping.
3. When puffs are removed from oven, cool for a few minutes, then split them in half and remove any soft dough inside. Cool completely.  Fill with cream cheese mixture, dust with powdered sugar, and garnish with fresh strawberries. (Or drizzle them with melted chocolate, or dip them in chocolate icing!)

Strawberry Cream Cheese Cookies

Okay, no photo this time, but possibly your future favorite cookie recipe.  Not only do these pale pink confections maintain a wonderful fluffy shape, but they deliver wonderful flavor everyone will love.  Perfect for summertime, baby showers, bridal showers, or just anytime you want to celebrate the incredible flavor  combination of strawberry and white chocolate.  Try it with other cake mix flavors, too!

1 (8 oz.) cream cheese, softened

1 stick butter, softened

1 egg

1/2 tsp. vanilla

1 box strawberry cake mix

1-2 Cups white chocolate chips (or dark chocolate)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Beat cream cheese and butter together until smooth. Add egg and vanilla. Add cake mix a little at a time. Stir in chips. Drop by teaspoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheet.  Bake for about 10 minutes.  Cookies will maintain puffy shape.  About 3 dozen.

(If you love nuts, stir in a cup of crushed pecans as well)

Strawberry Dumplings

Just in time for Mother's Day, a decadent, wonderful dessert!  It won the Grand Prize in a Reddi-Wip Contest, so I'll give you that version first, followed by an even richer, more sinful version.  Both are heavenly (and super easy, too).
Scroll down for a photo of me holding a plate of them.  I'm sitting on the staircase of our house in Iowa, and our third son, Cassidy, can hardly wait to dig in!

16 square wonton wrappers
8 fresh strawberries, trimmed and cleaned
oil for frying
powered sugar
Reddi Wip

Place one strawberry on each of 8 wonton wrappers.  Moisten edges of the other 8 wrappers and cover strawberries, pressing to seal edges and form dumplings.  Fry in skillet over high heat, turning wontons frequently, five minutes or until golden brown.  Drain dumplings, dust lightly with powdered sugar, and serve with Reddi Wip.

OR...
Use filled strawberries!  Simply beat 6 oz. of softened cream cheese with 1 & 1/2 Tablespoons of powdered sugar and 1 teaspoon of vanilla.  Then hollow out the berries and pipe this creamy mixture into them.  (You'll have lots of filling left-- use it for additional berries that you don't fry.)

What on Earth is a Vacherin?

Folks, I'm glad you're at your computer, because this means you're sitting down.  And that's the perfect place to be when you hear shocking news, right?  Well here's a dessert that looks like this:

yet is unbelievably easy to make.  In fact, you can't really call this baking.  It's more like assembling.  And you will love it!  Your guests will go wild and you will want to make these again and again.  I have de-constructed this French wonder to make it as simple as possible. Basically it has layers of EASY meringue, and then decadent fillings.  You can go as tall as you like with the layers

Or make it a rectangle, the way they do cakes in Europe.  Doesn't matter.

First of all, how do you pronounce Vacherin?  In the U.S. we see that and want to say, "Vacka-rin."  But I have consulted with one of my French-speaking sons (I have three) and was told the ch makes a shhh sound, the a is ahh, and the n is silent.  So it's vosha-rah.  That last part is tricky, because it has the short A sound, as in "ran," but without the n.  Okay, enough pronouncing, time to eat!  Here's what you need:

5 egg whites
1 & 1/4 Cup granulated sugar

First Filling:
1 (8 oz.) tub whipped topping, thawed
1/2 Cup seedless raspberry jam (or any jam you like.  Or lemon curd.  Or caramel. Or apricot jam.  Or strawberry puree. Or peanut butter.)

Second Filling:
1/4 Cup chocolate chips
1/4 Cup cream cheese
2 Tbsp. butter
1 (8 oz.) tub whipped topping, thawed

OR... just use chocolate frosting mixed with whipped topping.  OR... chocolate whipped topping.  You get the idea here, right?  Use whatever fillings you like.  Stir in little Heath Bar chunks.  Whatever.

Decorations:
Powdered sugar (or cocoa)
Berries

1. Preheat oven to 275 degrees.  Beat egg whites until very foamy.  Beat in sugar until meringue is stiff.  When you lift the beaters out, it will make points, not soft peaks.  Spread this meringue into circles or hearts, on parchment, on baking sheets.  I made thick ones, but you can make more if you make them thinner.

Be sure you make the top one fancy, because it will show.  Lattice, swirls, whatever.  You can put the meringue in a Zip-Loc bag, snip off one corner, and use that to pipe the meringue if you don't have a pastry bag. OR JUST MAKE IT ANOTHER CIRCLE, and then cover it completely later, with whipped cream and berries!  Now bake them with the oven door ajar, for 1 hour.  Cool completely.

2. Make the fillings.  For the first one, just stir the jam into the whipped cream.  For the second one, microwave the chips, cheese, and butter, until melty and smooth, then stir in the whipped topping and chill.

3. Assemble your layers.

 Put a baked meringue on a cake plate, cover with a filling, then top with the 2nd meringue and cover with a filling.  How much easier could this be?  If you want to add layers, just make extra meringues and stack it higher, using half as much filling atop each one (or make more filling).  Add berries here as well, if you like, or save them for just the top.

Top it with your lattice meringue, pile on berries then sift powdered sugar over all.

Slice and serve!  The meringue will be light and crispy, a perfect contrast to the creamy fillings.  Delish.  AND you can make little individual ones, too.
Okay, one last variation-- you can make chocolate meringue just by adding 1/4 cup cocoa.  Ooh-la-la!