Instructions

Pumpkin Choux Pastry

1. Bring milk, butter, sugar, and salt to boil.
2. Combine the flour with baking powder, pumpkin spice, and pumpkin powder. Add all of it to the milk mixture, and mix rapidly until the dough cooks and forms a ball.
3. Turn off the heat and let the dough cool down a bit, about 5 to 7 minutes. You can transfer the dough to another large bowl to cool faster.
4. Mix eggs, then pour just a little at a time into the bowl with the flour mixture; mixing as hard as you can with your wooden spoon to combine well until smooth. If you are using an electric mixer it could get too tough to mix so be aware, but it is easier. When I'm using an electric hand mixer I do up and down movement, then around so it doesn't get stuck.
5. When all the eggs are incorporated with the flour mixture, it's all smooth without any lumps, put it on the side spice
6. Preheat the oven to 375F
7. Use spoon or Head/neck: round tube with 1/5 inch. Body: round tube (2/5 inch) to push them out in an un-greased baking pan. Do not over-fill the piping pastry bag. Halfway would be pretty good. Make sure you have enough room around the pastry so it can grow. I would add 12 smaller shells or 8 bigger puff shells onto a large sheet pan. You can use parchment paper if you have it available.
8. Spray the puff shells with water. The puff shells will stop growing as soon as the surface turns dry (and crunchy). Therefore, when spraying the puff shells with water, it takes more time before they turn dry and they grow bigger in the oven.
9. BAKE, but DO NOT OPEN the oven for the next 25 minutes + 20 min. to dry. The 20 minutes are needed to dry the surface of the puff shells and make them crunchier. Otherwise, it is too soft. The puff shells look well done after 25 minutes already. Let them rest in the turned-off oven for an additional 20 minutes, and then 10 min more when you pull them out of the oven. TRUST ME ON THIS!!!
10. Cut them and fill them when they are cooled down.
    

Pastry cream:

1. In a small dish add 1/4 cup (60 ml) of cold water in a bowl then sprinkle 1 envelope, about 2 1/4-2 1/2 tsp.) over the cold water. Make sure not to dump it in a clump, as the powder in the center won’t be able to dissolve and bloom correctly. Mix and allow it to bloom for about 10 minutes. The longer you let it sit, the thicker it will become.
2. In a medium saucepan, combine 2 1/2 cups of milk, sugar, salt, and vanilla. Heat the mixture over medium heat, stirring until the sugar dissolves and it reaches a simmer. Keep an eye on it!
3. While waiting, whisk together the cornstarch, and egg yolks with the remaining 1/2 cup of milk. This will help you to make cornstarch into a paste, and it is just easier to combine everything.
4. Now, gradually add a little of the hot milk mixture to the egg yolks to temper them. Be sure to do this slowly, a splash at a time, to prevent the yolks from curdling when you mix them with the hot milk. Trust the process. Whisk continuously, but allow a few seconds in between to see if it is bubbling. When you see the mixture is thick enough and is leaving a nice coating on the mixing spoon or a whisk, take it off the heat completely.
   
5. Add a bit of the mixture to bloomed gelatin, like a scoop or so - this will be helpful and quite frankly easier to incorporate gelatin into the cream. Once it is mixed with a bit of cream add it back to the rest of the cream and stir well to combine. Stir in the butter. If you want to flavor the pastry cream (e.g., with chocolate), this is the time to do it. To make chocolate pastry cream in this case because I have half vanilla and half chocolate, split the cream in half and add 1 cup of chopped semisweet (or bittersweet chocolate) to the hot pastry cream, stirring until fully melted and smooth. That's it!
   NOTE: If you see any lumps after the pastry cream reaches a full boil, you’ll pour it through a strainer (fine mesh sieve) into the bowl to halt cooking and prevent curdling or separation.
6. Gently rub or brush on a bit of butter over the surface of the cream and cover it with plastic wrap just to make sure the wrap touches the surface to prevent skin from forming. *Skin is a very thin layer over milk, puddings, soups, etc., which creates skin look alike film over dishes when it start to cool down. The thickness depends on the fat content and the hotness of the heated dishes.
7. Chill the cream in the refrigerator. Once cooled, use the pastry cream as a filling for this pastry. If it has thickened too much, you may need to re-whisk it to restore a smooth consistency. For a softer cream, fold in whipped cream before using. Since I made two, I pipped on the bottom chocolate and the top vanilla.
   Stored in the fridge, pastry cream lasts up to 5 days. After this period, it might begin to release liquid. WAITING TIME TO COOL DOWN THE PASTRY CREAM IS NOT INCLUDED. I WOULD RECOMMEND FOR YOU MAKE PASTRY CREAM NIGHT BEFORE JUST TO HAVE THEM READY QUICKER.
8. Once all of them are filled are ready to chill in the fridge for at least an hour, you could dust them with powdered sugar or drizzle a bt of melted chocolate on top.