RECIPE :: choux pastry balls with a blueberry stuffing

nutty rice cakes : courgette linguine : choux pastry balls

makes 10 balls

I had a very different image in mind when I thought up this recipe and thankfully it didn’ t work and ended up giving me a recipe for little cakes stuffed with a fresh blueberry jam. Before this recipe I’d never used blueberries so I was thrilled to find their rich colour and flavour worked perfectly plus their high pectin (fruit sugar) content made this jam set wonderfully.

Ingredients
Choux pastry
250ml of milk,
100ml of maple syrup,
100g of butter,
½ tsp of salt,
150g of flour,
1tsp of baking powder,
½ tsp of bicarbonate of soda and
some castor sugar.

Blueberry jam
250g of blueberries,
100ml of water and
50g of sugar.

mint to garnish.

Method

1)	Pre-warm the oven to gas mark 7.
2)	To make the pastry; put the milk, maple syrup, butter and salt into a frying pan and bring to the boil. Lower the heat and simmer for 2 minutes stirring often.
3)	Split the dough into 10 balls. Place onto a lined baking tray and sprinkle with some castor sugar, bake for 25-30 minutes or until the top of the pastry becomes a golden brown.
4)	To make the jam; put all the ingredients into a pan and bring to the boil. Lower the heat and simmer for 10-15 minutes or until it has thickened. You will end up with the berries broken apart and very soft with a fantastic blue colour.
5)	Once the pastry balls have cooked cut a slit into them and stuff with as much of the blueberry jam as you can. I like to leave them for an hour so that some of the colour can seep into the choux balls.
6)	To serve; garnish your cakes with the fresh mint leaves.