Soft Baked Mini Cream Cheese Puffs
These mini cream cheese puffs are soft, light, buttery and fast to make. From start to finish, just 15 minutes separates you from warm, fresh bread. The interior texture is a cross between an English muffin and a traditional biscuit, with lots of nooks and crannies, perfect for drenching with butter, jam, honey, or smearing on cream cheese. You could add warming spices to the batter like cinnamon, pumpkin pie spice, nutmeg; or go savory with garlic, onion, smoked paprika. They’re a perfect blank canvas, receptive to many different spices. Eat them as is, or as dippers for your favorite dips, chutneys, or soup. Note the batter is very thick, dense, and paste-like; and don’t overbake. They’ll be prone to burning and turning too dark around the base after about 11-12 minutes so watch them closely.
What you need
Instructions
0 Preheat oven to 425F and spray mini muffin pans with floured cooking spray, or grease and flour the pans; set aside. 1 In a large mixing bowl, combine all ingredients except milk and beat with an electric mixer to combine, about 2 minutes on medium high speed. Mixture will be very crumbly, with pebbles and sandy bits. 2 Slowly drizzle in up to 3/4 cup milk; just enough so that batter will combine and come together. Note – this batter is very thick and paste-like, and I only used 3/4 cup milk. If yours is thick to the point you can’t stir it, add milk, as necessary to thin it. 3 Using a tablespoon or small cookie scoop that’s been sprayed with cooking spray (helps batter slide off spoon or scoop easily), form rounded 1 tablespoon mounds and place mounds into prepared pans. Each cavity of pan should be filled about 3/4 full. The cavities are small and the batter is thick, and it’s okay if they’re not all filled exactly uniformly. As the bake, batter that was placed in the pan in a very rounded fashion (like a perfect scoop of ice cream) will bake up more domed and puffed than batter that was just smooshed in. They rise very well; be careful not to overfill. 4 Bake for about 11 to 12 minutes, or until puffs are springy to the touch, and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Don’t overbake because they’ll be prone to becoming dry and the bases will turn overly dark (and you can’t see this until you release them from the pans). Allow puffs to cool in pans for about 10 minutes, or until they’ve firmed up and are cool enough to handle. Puffs are best fresh, but will keep airtight at room temperature for up to 3 days, or in the freezer for up to 4 months. Serve plain or with butter, cream cheese, jam/jelly, honey, chutney, dips, soup.View original recipe