Ingredients

- 130g of flour

- 200ml of water

- 100g of butter

- 2 or 3 eggs

- a pinch of salt

- 1 tablespoon of sugar (olny if you want them sweet)

Pastry cream for the filling (find the recipe here)

Powder sugar to decorate/Sugar glaze (look the recipe here)

Make the choux pastry. Measure 200ml of water and pour it in a pot with 100g of butter. Warm up the pot until the butter is completely melt.

Add one tblspoon of sugar (in this recipe we will fill the puffs with pastry cream so we added sugar to make the dough sweet, but if you think to make them salty skip the sugar) and a pinch of salt.

In the meanwhile measure 130g of flour (better if sifted). Once the butter-water mixture starts to boil take out the pot from the heat and add the flour in one shot.

Stir the flour with a wood spoon until the mixture starts to form a ball.

Place the pot again on medium heat and stir the mixture for about 10 min.

Once the ball is completely formed and it stats to attach on the bottom of the pan, it's ready. Transfer the dough in a bowl and let it cool at room temperature. (It can take about 20 min. If you want to accelerate the process you can put the bowl with the dough inside an other bowl with ice)

Once the dough is completely cool, start to add the first egg. Mix really well before to add the second egg.

Add the second egg and mix. Sometime 2 eggs are enough. What you want to obtain is a dense but creamy dough. Mostly depends on how long you cook the dough in the pot, sometime it remains really soft, so you will need only 2 eggs)

If needed add the third egg and mix really well.

Fill a decorating bag with the dough.

Place a sheet of parchment paper in a oven tray and make small balls of dough on it. If you don't have the decorating bag, you can use a spoon to form small balls on the parchment paper. Cook in the oven at 220°C (425F) for 15min.

Without open the oven, set the temperature to 190°C (375F) and let them cook for 10 min. Then turn off the oven, open a bit the oven door and let the puffs rest in the oven for 10 min more while the oven is cooling. Take them out of the oven and let them cool at room temperature.

Fill the puffs. Make the pastry cream (look the recipe here) and fill a decorating bag with it. With a knife make a "x" shape cut in the puff.

Place the tip inside the cut and sqeeze the pastry cream inside. Before to serve sprinkle some powder sugar on top of the cream puff. Serve cold.