This is another well-known Indonesian (or Asian) cake. Creamy vanilla rum custard with light choux pastry shell, lovely combination!
Some tips and tricks that I can share:
- Make sure to pre-heat the oven to the required temperature before baking
- Do not open your oven door when baking the choux pastry shells, otherwise they will not puff up
- You’ll notice tiny bubbles around the choux pastry shells when they are baking, do not take out the pastry shells until almost all or all of those tiny bubbles are gone
- Do not over mix the flour and egg (maximum three minutes of mixing), they just need to be incorporated well, otherwise the batter will be too runny and cannot hold its shape. I believe this doesn’t affect the taste at all, only appearance.
Ingredients for the choux:
- 225 ml milk
- 100 grams butter
- 1 tablespoon sugar
- 125 grams all-purpose flour
- 4 eggs
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
Combine milk, butter, and sugar in a cooking pan over very low heat, keep stirring until butter is melted and the mixture is just boiled. Then add in the flour, keep stirring so that no flour is burnt. Once the dough is not sticky on the base of the pan, turn off the heat and set aside until cooling down to room temperature (do not put it in the fridge).
When the dough is cooled down, add in eggs one by one and mix well. Then add in the baking powder, again mix well. At this stage your dough should not too runny, it should still be able to hold its shape.
Transfer the dough into a pastry bag with open star piping nozzle (I use Wilton’s no. 18) to pipe into the baking tray. You could lightly oil-brushed the baking tray, or if you are lazy like me, just use non-stick baking paper 😛
Bake in 200C pre-heated oven for about 30-40 minutes until puffed up and golden brown. When cooked, removed from oven and let cool.
Ingredients for the custard filling:
- 500 ml milk
- 2 egg yolks
- 20 grams of maize flour
- vanilla extract
- 20 grams of all-purpose flour
- 100 grams sugar
- 1 tablespoon of butter
- 4 tablespoons of rum (can be adjusted to your liking, or alcohol-free for kids)
Mix egg yolks, maize flour and all-purpose flour; set aside.
Cook milk and sugar over low heat until just boil then add in the egg yolk mixture while keep whisking. When it is boiled, add the butter and rum, stir well and turn off heat. Let it cool at least to room temperature before filled into the choux shells.
We prefer the custard filling cold, so I usually store this filling in air-tight container in the fridge and only fill in the choux shells for serving.
I’ve been wanting to make Nutella version for the custard filling but haven’t got around to do it, but will definitely post it here if I get to try 🙂
