Daily Archives: January 14, 2009

We don’t buy toys for our cats.  Once in a blue moon someone will give them a toy, which we douse in catnip and both cats will rub their faces on said toy, lick all the catnip off said toy, and then lay in a corner, completely dazed for about 30 minutes.  But what really gets them going?  This specific little crumpled up cough drop wrapper.  No kidding.  Justin threw this down for Storm to play with about TWO MONTHS ago, and she still plays with the silly little booger almost every day.  As we can all see in the photograph, it is very obviously the coolest thing on the planet.

Obviously, since these have a fancy french name, I’m not talking about the neon orange “cheesy” styrofoam peanuts at the store.  Nope, I’m talking about honest-to-goodness savory pate a choux (pronounced paat-aa-shoe), or cream puff dough, with shredded Gruyere cheese mixed in.  Since I got Pastry Cream out of the way yesterday, I figured I would conquer all my silly, completely unfounded kitchen phobias.  Pate a choux is even easier than pastry cream.  No worries about curdled eggs or lumpy custards, just mixing a dough in a saucepan and then shifting it to a mixing bowl to add the eggs.  I think I made about a gazillion cream puffs in school, as they were always a hit at fundraisers, and you bake what you know people like (and will give money for).  The next step is just to combine my last two projects, and make real cream puffs or eclairs, filled with that psychotically good vanilla pastry cream.  Oh crud.  I think I just gained 3 pounds just writing about it.