raspberry powder puffs

raspberry powder puffs

• 15 Jun 2020

After school Mum would drive home via the local cake shop where we'd pick up something for afternoon tea. Inevitably I'd select a jam tart, an apple slice or a jam filled powder puff. Powder puffs are 2 little sponge cakes sandwiched together with whipped cream, jam or lemon curd.



In all those years I've never actually made powder puffs and with a new tin to try out from Everten, the time had come. There is a recipe for powder puffs in Sweet by Ottolenghi and Helen Goh which was based on a Stephanie Alexander recipe so I tracked down Stephanie's original recipe. 



Here’s the recipe for you which makes 12 large powder puffs. The recipe is adapted from a Stephanie Alexander recipe which you can find here. For all my recipes I use a 250 ml cup, a 20 ml tablespoon, unsalted butter and 60 g eggs. My oven is a conventional oven so if you have a fan-forced oven you may need to reduce the temperature by 20ºC.

Raspberry Powder Puffs – makes about 12
Ingredients
2 eggs, separated
½ cup caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla
50g plain flour
50g cornflour
¼ tsp bicarbonate of soda
½ tsp cream of tartar
Pinch salt
15g icing sugar for dusting

Filling
200mls thickened cream
15g caster sugar
½ tsp vanilla bean paste
5 raspberries, crushed (optional)
⅓ cup raspberry jam

Method
Preheat oven to 210°C (conventional). Lightly grease a macaroon tray with butter (I used the Bakemaster 12 cup macaroon pan from Everten) and set aside or line a tray with baking paper. Whisk the egg whites until soft peaks form. Gradually add the sugar and whisk for another 5 minutes until the mixture forms a stiff and glossy meringue. Add the vanilla and the egg yolks one at a time and beat until just combined.

Place the flour, cornflour, bicarb soda, cream of tartar and salt in a bowl and sift twice before sifting for a third time into the bowl containing the meringue mixture. Fold the dry ingredients into the meringue gently but thoroughly stopping as soon as it’s combined. Stop mixing at this point.

Drop heaped tablespoonfuls of the mixture onto the greased macaroon or prepared baking tray. Place in the oven and bake for 10 minutes, rotating the tray halfway through until golden brown around the edges and starting to go crisp.

Remove from the oven and set aside to cool for 10 minutes before removing from the tray with a palette knife. Gently ease the biscuits from the tray and arrange in pairs on a cooking rack. If using a regular tray, wipe down the baking paper before continuing with the next batch.

Filling
Whisk the cream with the sugar and vanilla bean paste until soft peaks form. Don’t overbeat or you’ll end up with grainy cream. If you like you can fold through a few crushed berries.

At least 5 hours before serving spread a teaspoon of jam onto the base of half the biscuits followed by a tablespoon of the whipped cream. Sandwich together with the top biscuits and place the puffs in a container in the fridge for between 4 – 24 hours, layered with baking paper in an airtight container. The biscuits should have completely softened by this stage. Just before serving dredge the top of the powder puffs with icing sugar. These are best served at room temperature.



I took these into work and they disappeared so quickly I didn't get the chance to try one myself. Apparently they were very good.

See you all again next week.

Bye for now,

Jillian