Mao Shan Wang Durian Puffs

Hubby and I love, love, LOVE eating durians!  Glad we are both aligned on this, otherwise it would be a real torture for me hehe! Anyway, it is the durian season again. This year, it started late in end July. We had some in June and they weren't good. Now is the durian feasting period!

Had a few good rounds of Mao Shan Wang feasting. Hubby bought a few packs of durian purees and boy, elated was I! I could do so much with these yummy purees! Think durian cheesecakes, durian puffs, durian pancakes, durian ice cream, durian crepes and so many more.

All these durian talks, and now the pics. Yeah, I made durian puffs. Used up a quarter of the MSW puree to make this babies.  These puffs aren't looking professionally done at all but I kinda got the hang of it. Hehehe... more practice! Pastry making is no longer daunting :)

I used mydeartummy's recipe for the puff portion. I prefer my filling to be pure durian with no whipping cream so I merely mixed in some sugar and milk for it.

Mao Shan Wang Durian Puffs
(Makes about 20+ per batch)

50g butter (salted) =~3 tbsp butter
1/3 cup water (about 80g)
1/3 cup plain flour (about 70g)
1 1/2 – 2 eggs
1/2 tsp sugar

1. Heat up a saucepan of butter and water till it melts and boils. Add in the salt and sugar too. This takes around 5min. And you will be greeted with a puddle of yellow shiny buttery-smelling oil in the saucepan.

2. Sift the flour while the butter-water mixture is melting. Turn off the flame. Pour all the sifted flour into the pan of oily mixture and mix. Mix till it clumps up and to the point that the sides of the pan are clean when you roll around this ball of dough in the pan.

3.  Once again, put the pan back on the flame and heat it up for around 2-3 mins, but be sure to keep stirring well so it won’t fry.

4. Turn off flame and leave pan to cool for a while. Once cooled after a few minutes, pour in the egg mixture to the dough, bit by bit. Stir well. This part is the most tedious and hand-aching, so keep your cool and stir on. Stir till it looks like these swirly ribbons of soft caramel that drop into folds when you lift up the spoon. And that’s when you know your dough is ready.

5. Ok, now comes preparing the batter dough to be piped onto the baking tray. Some say wet the baking sheet before piping but I do the other way. I lay a baking sheet on the tray and just pipe out the dough straight onto the clean sheet.

Before baking, wet your fingers with water and dab the top surface of each puff to wet it slightly. To kind of even out the surface so it won’t bake with pointed tops and the water apparently works as steam while baking to help in the rising of the puff.

Bake at 200 degree C for about 15min then turn down the oven temperature to 170 degree C and bake for about 3min more.

After taking them out of the oven, leave to cool and poke 2 holes into the puffs to serve as convection holes.

Cut slits into the puffs to create the hollow caves.


Durian fillings

450g durian pulp or puree
3 to 4 tbsp fresh milk
1/2 tbsp of sugar (preservative to keep durians well)

1. Mix durian with sugar and enough milk to form a paste. Mix well till sugar is dissolved.
2. Scoop durian cream into pastry puffs and dust them off with icing sugar.