Mocha Cream Puffs with Hood Strawberries

June is here, that means it’s strawberry month in Oregon. If you’ve never tasted Hood strawberries before you missed a whole new meaning to eating really ripe, sweet and juicy strawberries. Their sizes may be small but their taste surpass all those jumbo, too tart California strawberries you’ll find in the market. These are always locally grown and therefore whenever we buy them, we’re supporting sustainable farms.


I almost always can’t wait for those strawberries, the best to get them is to go to a U-pick farm and pick them yourselves. Sure, your knees and back will scream at you for getting them squat and bend, but you’ll be rewarded with summer sweet harvest. Hood strawberries are very tender too so a lot of time your hands will be stained red from just picking them. Last year I did U-pick and made several jars of strawberry jams. My last frozen strawberries were made into homemade soft jellos; my husband even dumped them in the bowl with vanilla ice cream and it’s manna for him
I’m hoping that the weather will be good next weekend because I’ll be going to a U-pick farm to pick strawberries again. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to make another batch of jams but we’ll see. This week I managed to make some treats because my husband started to whine that there’s none in the house since his birthday has gone by. I promised him I’d make cream puffs. So here’s the cream puffs that I made, this time I’m making them filled with mocha cream. For a bonus, I sliced some Hood strawberries and layered them in the cream. Oh, so delicious… The strawberries were bought this Sunday from Milwaukie Sunday Farmers Market, which was a fun place to visit. Lots of fresh produce and a variety of other things to find in it, it even has music as the entertainment

Mocha Cream Pufffs with Hood Strawberries

Yield about 16 large puffs

For cream puffs:

7 tablespoons unsalted butter

1 cup water

Pinch of salt

1 cup all-purpose flour

4 large eggs, at room temperature

For mocha cream:

2 cups heavy cream

5 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder

1 teaspoon instant espresso powder

1/2 cup granulated sugar

Small strawberries (Hood strawberries preferred), sliced thinly

Preheat oven to 450 degree F. Line at least two large cookie sheets with parchment paper and set aside.

In a medium saucepan heat butter, water, and salt until it boils. Quickly dump all the flour at once and stir vigorously with a wooden spoon until the dough pulls away from the sides of pan.

Remove pan from heat. Dump the dough into a bowl of a mixer and mix with a paddle attachment with medium speed. Add eggs, one a time, mixing it well after adding each one. Mix well until a smooth and sticky dough is achieved. Transfer dough into a pastry bag or spoon it into the prepared cookie sheets, the size of the puffs will depend on how big you want them to be. A tablespoon of dough will turn into a good size puff. Space them about 1 inch apart in the pan.

Bake for 15 minutes. Reduce the heat to 350 degree F and continue baking for about 30-35 minutes or until the puffs are golden brown. Remove puffs from the oven and let them cool on wire cooling racks.

Combine heavy cream, cocoa, espresso, and sugar in a mixer bowl. Whip with a wire whisk attachment on high speed until soft peaks forms, about 2 minutes; scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl with rubber spatula. Continue mixing until with high speed until stiff. Use this immediately.

Slice the tops of cream puffs with a serrated knife. Using a pastry bag or spoon, fill the puffs with cream, put strawberries slices on top of cream and place tops on puffs. Dust with confectioner’s sugar and serve. Store in refrigerator and always serve chilled.

Source: adapted from Sweet Marias Italian Desserts