Zeppole di San Giuseppe

Ingredients:

For the Pastry Puffs:

• Flour, 2 3/4 cups
• Salt, 1/8 tsp
• Baking soda, 1/2 tsp
• Water, 2 cups
• Butter, 3/4 stick plus 3 1/2 tbs
• Eggs, 6

For the Italian Custard:

• Sugar, 1 cup
• Flour, 1/2 cup
• Salt, 1/4 tsp
• Milk, 3 cups
• Egg yolks, 4
• Butter, 3 tbs
• Vanilla extract, 1 1/2 tsp
• Rum, 1 tbs

Preparation:

For the Pastry Puffs:

Preheat oven to 200°C.  Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper. 

Sift the flour, salt, and baking soda together and set aside.

In a heavy saucepan, heat the water.  Add the butter.  When melted, remove the pan from the stove and add the flour mixture all at once. 

Beat with a wooden spoon, then return the pan to medium-high heat, beating the mixture until it comes away from the sides of the pan. 

Remove the pan from the heat and add the eggs one at a time, beating with a wooden spoon or hand mixer in-between additions to mix well.

Fill a pastry bag fitted with a 1.2 cm tip with the cream puff batter. 

Squeeze out 8 cm puffs, about 1.2 cm apart on a cookie sheet. 

Bake 20 minutes or until golden brown. 

When done, carefully slit the side of each cream puff with a knife to allow steam to escape and to prevent the puffs from becoming soggy inside. 

Transfer to cooling racks and let cool.

For the Italian Custard:

In saucepan over moderate heat, combine sugar, flour and salt. Add milk gradually, cooking and stirring until mixture is thick and bubbly.

Lower heat, stirring for 2 minutes and remove from heat. In a small bowl, add cream mixture to eggs slowly.

Return mixture back to pan. Bring to gently boil for 2 more minutes, adding butter, rum, and vanilla.

Tranfer to a shallow bowl to cool, placing plastic wrap on the top of the custard to prevent a skin forming. Refrigerate.

Once custard has cooled completely, pipe into opened pastry shells until they are so full they might pop.

Top with a cherry, and dust with powdered sugar (we ommited this).