Emily Laurae

Cream Puff Craquelin
1 Add the butter, brown sugar, salt and bread flour in a bowl and mix until combined.
2 Roll out the craquelin between two pieces of parchment paper until ⅛ of an inch thick and place in the freezer to firm and chill.
Cream Puffs
4 Preheat oven to 400°F.
5 In a small pot, bring your water, milk powder and butter to a simmer/slight boil.
6 Add the flour and salt into your pot at once continuing to cook on high heat and stirring the mixture with a spatula continuously until a dough starts to form and a thin film appears at the base of the pot. This should take 3-5 minutes and the dough should reach 175F.
7 Place the dough into the bowl of a stand mixer and using a paddle attachment, start to mix in order to cool down the dough to 145F.
8 Add eggs to the choux dough one at a time, continuously mixing with the paddle attachment. You'll know that your dough is at the right consistency when the dough forms a V-shape as it hangs off the spatula and/or paddle attachment.
9 Transfer the choux dough to a piping bag and snip off the tip of the bag to create a ½ inch opening.
10 Pipe one-inch rounds of dough onto a parchment-lined baking sheet leaving space between each cream puff - two to three inches. Leave at least 3 inches in between each dollop for when the choux will begin to inflate (about 6 on each baking sheet).
11 Take the frozen cream puff craquelin out of the freezer and use a 2-inch round cutter to cut circles of crust out. Then, gently place one disc on top of your piped batter.
12 Place the cream puffs into the oven baking for 5 minutes before turning down the temperature to 350°F for an additional 25 minutes or until browned. Then, crack the oven and allow the choux to cool naturally within the oven for about 20 minutes.
Assembly
14 With a serrated knife, cut the tops off of each choux puff.
15 Pipe the diplomat cream into the choux cavity, and top with whipped cream.
16 Place the top on each cream puff and enjoy!