Chocolate Eggnog Cream Puffs

One of the sponsors of the St. Louis Food Media Forum that I attended in August was Safest Choice Eggs. I was about twelve weeks pregnant at the time and already mourning the temporary hiatus of runny egg yolks. Needless to say, I was thrilled to discover that Safest Choice Eggs are pasteurized, totally eliminating the risk of salmonella, meaning I could go crazy with egg yolks again. Since then, I've stocked up on Safest Choice Eggs and resumed my fried egg habit, not to mention my raw cookie dough eating! (To be fair, I'm totally okay with eating the occasional non-pasteurized runny egg and don't stress about it too much in restaurants, but it's totally a personal decision for all pregnant women out there!).
Today we're using Safest Choice Eggs in another form: cream puffs and pastry cream! Again, the nice thing about these eggs is not having to worry about cross contamination or whether the eggs are undercooked...perfect in recipes like pastry cream! In light of the upcoming holiday, I went eggnog themed with these cream puffs.
I'm never sure whether I'm an eggnog fan or not. I like the idea of it and it contains things I love (heck, it's basically spiced ice cream in liquid form)...but I prefer it in small doses. Thus, eggnog pastry cream was perfect for me! You get just enough of the eggnog without feeling totally weighed down by all that sugar and spice and cream. 
I've made cream puffs before, so I had the basic process down, but decided to change things up and make chocolate cream puff shells this time around. The shells don't have any sugar in them, making them an ideal blank (chocolate) canvas for the sweetened eggnog pastry cream. Although you might be familiar with the giant overwhelming cream puffs, I stuck to bite-sized ones making them perfect for a Christmas party where you want to try all the desserts on the spread!

You can make the recipe components ahead of time (shells one day ahead of time, pastry cream three days ahead of time), just don't assemble until the day you plan to serve for the freshest flavor! Cookies and fudge are good and fun this time of year, but change things up this season with these miniature cream puffs that scream holiday!

Kitchen PLAY is hosting a giveaway with Safest Choice eggs for a holiday baking pack, including Sur La Table baking sheets, mixing bowls, and spatulas, a Better Homes & Gardens cookbook, twelve DOZEN eggs, and more ($150 value!). Enter on Facebook here!

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Of all the foods I’ve really come to love over the past few years, eggs stand out more than anything else. I frequently wax poetic about my love of runny yolks and the way a fried egg can transform a recipe, but really I’ll take eggs in any way, shape, or form. It’s not that growing up I disliked eggs, they were just never something I considered eating all that often. Breakfast, or breakfast for dinner, was all about the sweet stuff for me. Much as I still love pancakes, waffles, and French toast, it’s the egg dishes that I find myself gravitating toward. 



Cooking Light introduced these as a quick and easy breakfast option (especially when you make the salsa the night ahead of time), but we enjoyed these for dinner one busy night. Although the original recipe is posted below, Ryan made a much bigger batch of the salsa, which we enjoyed with tortilla chips on the side. The original recipe serves 4 (one half-wrap for each), but that definitely wouldn’t be enough to satisfy us for breakfast or dinner. Plan on one full wrap per person, and wrap them in foil if you want a less messy way to eat (and/or transport). 

How about you? Are you yay or nay when it comes to eggs? 

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