I love making cream puffs – they seem to have a great balance between the rich, custardy filling and the choux casing. Also, I believe I have an edge in the game: since I keep chickens, I tend to have extremely fresh, yummy eggs to use in this recipe where both components rely so heavily on that ingredient.

My message today, though, is that you don’t have to stick to just the normal, round choux bun.

With the Jewish holiday of Purim* coming, I chose to pipe my choux buns into the shape of crowns for an evening at our synagogue.  It took one or two passes to settle on the right piping approach.

I first thought I would just make little spikes arrayed like a crown (with the star tip), but it wasn’t working for me, so settled on a pretty reliable way the make a horizontal stroke and then essentially go back over that with a “U” shape to create the two side points and then loop back to the middle to create the center point of the crown. Ergonomically, it also wound up being easy to get into the rhythm and crank them out.

Whatever your reason, feel free to have fun with your choux!

*Philosophically, since the Purim story highlights a frightened Queen Esther hiding her Jewish identity, profiteroles are kind of a perfect dessert – who would guess, upon first looking at them, that these little bready-buns hold such wondrous, velvety pastry cream inside?