These orange cream puffs are filled with a delicious orange pastry cream and topped with a delightful chocolate shell. Drizzle with some milk chocolate for an even more indulgent dessert!
Why You’ll Love This Recipe
- Chocolate-orange deliciousness: You can’t go wrong with that combination! These orange cream puffs taste absolutely amazing if you love that pairing.
- Customizable: You can play around with the components if you’d like. Add a craquelin to the choux for even more crunch and sweetness. Pair the chocolate shell with different types of fillings etc.
- Make-ahead: There might be several components in this recipe but you can easily make the choux pastry and pastry cream in advance. You can then bake the choux and fill them on the day before dipping them in melted chocolate.
How to Make Orange Cream Puffs
There are three components to this recipe:
- The choux pastry
- The orange pastry cream
- The chocolate shell
Choux pastry
I’ve previously shared a detailed tutorial on how to make choux pastry. Be sure to check it out first if you’ve never made choux pastry so you don’t miss out on all the tips and tricks.
The choux pastry can be prepared in advance and frozen for up to one month. My favorite way of doing this is by using dome-shaped silicone molds. Simply pipe the pastry in the cavities and freeze until firm enough to unmold. You can store them in a ziplock bag in the freezer and take them out whenever you need them. Simply thaw at room temperature while preheating the oven (15-30 minutes).
I like to dust the surface of the piped choux pastry with powdered sugar just before baking to minimize cracks. It will be easier to coat the choux with chocolate evenly if the surface is smoother. You could add a craquelin topping instead if you prefer. But since the chocolate shell will provide enough crunch, I chose to skip it this time.
Orange pastry cream
The pastry cream can be prepared the day before. In case you missed it, I recently posted step-by-step instructions on how to make orange pastry cream.
When you are ready to use it, just whisk it to loosen it. Alternatively, transfer it to a mixing bowl and mix it just until smooth. Don’t mix it for too long or it won’t be as firm.
Tip: Make sure the choux buns have cooled down completely before filling them with cream.
Since we’ll be dipping the choux in melted chocolate, it’s best not to slice the choux buns to fill them with pastry cream. Instead, poke a small hole at the bottom of the choux and fill using a piping bag (fitted with a small round tip, if desired). Then chill while you melt the chocolate.
Chocolate shell
I like to use dark chocolate to contrast with the sweet filling. It’s best to use couverture chocolate which has a higher amount of cocoa butter than regular chocolate, to get a nice chocolate shell.
I was going back and forth wondering whether to temper the chocolate or not. The quantity of chocolate needed in this recipe is quite small making it trickier to maintain the desired temperature. The truth is, even without tempering (or if you mess up the tempering) you’ll still get good results, especially if you plan on serving the choux buns shortly after making them. But for even better results, we should ideally temper the chocolate, so it stays shiny, sets quickly and has a nice snap.
One of the simplest method is to melt finely chopped chocolate very gently without exceeding 32°C/90°F (for dark chocolate), so the chocolate doesn’t lose its shine. I haven’t had much luck with that method as I found it very hard to stay below that temperature.
So I tried the next best thing: the seeding method. If you’d like to try it out, chop the chocolate as finely as possible. Set aside about 1/4 of the chocolate, this will be our “seed”. Place the chocolate in a small microwavable bowl and heat in short increments (about 10 second), stirring in-between, until melted and the temperature reaches 46-49°C (115-120°F). I heated the chocolate in 6 increments.
Once the chocolate is fully melted, add the remaining chocolate (1/4) whilst stirring. The temperature should drop down to around 31°C-33°C (88°F-91°F), the ideal temperature to dip the choux buns in. If the seed chocolate won’t melt after stirring, the chocolate pieces were probably too large or the melted chocolate cooled down too quickly. This is likely to happen when working with small quantities as we will be doing today. You can gently reheat it in the microwave but try not to exceed 33°C (91°F) or you’ll have to temper the chocolate again.
Once you dip the choux in, let the chocolate set briefly at room temperature before chilling. Bring to room temperature and enjoy!
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