The Most Adventurous Recipe I've Mastered

Homemade Cream Puffs

I seem to remember that one of the most challenging recipes I ever decided to tackle was when I was probably about fourteen to sixteen years old. It was homemade cream puffs, from scratch, including the cream filling.

I had occasionally eaten cream puffs, and always wondered how they managed to get the pastry hollow so as to be filled with the decadent cream filling. Funny thing; when I made cream puffs, they were not the sort that are sliced in half, and filled. These were filled through a hole in the side, much as Hostess Twinkies are filled while leaving them intact. Please, don't think I am comparing Twinkies with cream puffs, because the only similarity is the fact that both were filled through a single hole, instead of being cut in half and filled much like a sandwich.

My mother had a "Joy of Cooking" cookbook, where I had previously discovered my first challenge when I was ten years old. Then, I made a from scratch chocolate two-layer cake, with a simple frosting make from simple syrup and egg whites.

Chocolate Cake
with
Berries and Cherries
 on top.

But, although the cake turned out great, and we usually had that cake about once a month, it took me several more years before I decided to delve into the cream puff recipe from the same "Joy of Cooking" book.

Astonishingly, my cream puffs also turned out pretty good, but I guess I really didn't care as much for cream puffs as I did for that homemade "Rombauer Special" chocolate cake.

Thought I am by no means a professional or master chef, when I set my mind to wanting to learn about how to create some recipe I have never attempted, usually, but not always, it turns out pretty well.

Cherry Crepes

I think the most recent challenging thing I made, without a recipe, was my homemade cherry crepes. About thirty years ago, I would occasionally go to an iHop, and have their Cherry crepes, and that became my very favorite dish which I had as often as once a week.

Then, we moved a bit too far away from an iHop to be able to go every week. Between he cost of eating out and the fact that I wanted to make something special for my family for weekend breakfast, I sort of figured out my own recipe, which rivaled the one served at iHop. Now, for the most part, iHop still serves fruit crepes, but seldom do they offer crepes made with cherries.

Cherry or Berry Filled Crepes

I even have published my cherry crepe recipe on helium.com.

In case you are curious or would like to try my recipe, here's the link to the one I wrote on helium.com:

http://cooking.helium.com/how-to/10267-how-to-make-cherry-crepes-blintzes

You can make your crepes to look like either of these photos, as people do have differing tastes.  Personally, I prefer the one that are filled similar to a burrito, and with more of the topping which is also the filling.  I just love cherries, as well as the filling that I created.