My version of "Snickers" cream puffs aka chocolate cream puffs with both caramel and chocolate mousse fillings, chocolate and caramel sauce toppings and roasted peanuts. These, really, really really satisfy.

I actually made these a few weeks ago for my dad's 70th birthday. He has several favorite desserts, one being cream puffs, the other being snickers. He has many others, but these have always been in the top 5. So I figured why not combine the two and make a crazy, decadent dessert. So I did a little research online to figure out how I wanted to make them exactly. I only found ONE Snicker's profiterole from one of my favorite blogs, Baker's Royale ( amazing baking, stunning photography) and I loved what she made, but it wasn't exactly what I wanted to do. She made hers with a peanut butter mousse and chopped up snickers bars. While they look and sound amazing, I knew my dad wouldn't be big on the peanut butter mousse as much, but he would dig the chopped up snickers. Since that would have been too similar to Baker's Royale's I decided to go against that and make mine a little different. plus traditional Snicker's don't have peanut butter in them, but peanut pieces, so I went that route with sprinkling the peanuts on top.

I also tried to find out a nougat recipe; not the nougat candy that is made from a boiled sugar-egg white base with almonds in it, but the mousse-like nougat that is in a Snickers candy bar. Traditional nougat candy has a harder consistency that is like a cross between marshmallow and taffy. But that isn't exactly what I wanted, and I couldn't find a recipe for nougat like in Snickers. I think that's enough "nougat" for one paragraph. So I decided to go for two different types of mousse in these cream puffs. Caramel mousse, and chocolate mousse. Yum right? I also normally make traditional pate a choux pastry but this time I decided to make them chocolate.

I had some issues making the choux pastry. I first made the recipe out of my grandmother's Joy of Cooking book (1963 publishing date) and it was different than I had made before and I had to adapt it ever so slightly to adjust for adding the cocoa. They didn't puff very high, but looked right. I decided to make a second batch because I wanted BIG cream puffs. Second time I made a different recipe and they didn't puff at all, basically were like little hockey puck puffs. Ok soooo I hate wasting ingredients but I still didn't have my big cream puffs that I wanted. So third time the charm? Nope they puffed and then fell flat. I was getting sad, thinking my grand plan for making my dad a special dessert for his birthday wasn't going to happen until I discussing with my friend Stephanie ( From Sweet Creations By Stephanie) about my pate a choux issues and she said " Doesn't this happen to you everytime?" uhhh yes. So she gave me her recipe, which was pretty much the same as the first one I used, the Joy of Cooking one, but slightly different. So take 4 was a winner. Thanks again Steph for "rescuing" me.

One more thing there is this new app called Vine and it has 6 second videos, which are WAY cool for blogging I think if I can ever figure out how to do the stop action better and get more than 1 out of 15 uploaded ( mine mostly fail to upload for some reason) and when I was shooting these I decided to take a video while drizzling on more caramel and said " there is no such thing as too much caramel". Lots of people agreed with that statement. I took a few more pics of the cream puffs with the extra caramel and decided I liked how they looked too. So here is my side by side - what do you think? Less caramel or more? Oh and by the way I KNOW these are somewhat labor intensive with the making of the cream puff shells ( hopefully only one time for you and not 4 like me) and the two different mousse recipes, the caramel and chocolate sauce and the assembly - it is so worth it but if you don't want to go through all the trouble to make it all, at least make the caramel mousse. Its the most amazing mousse I have ever made/eaten in my life. No lie. I want to make it again and again and again.....

Yield: 18

"Snickers" Cream Puffs

Name: "Snickers" Cream Puffs
Prep time: 10 min
Cook time: 40 min
Total time: 50 min
Yield: 18
Ingredients: 1 cup water; 1 stick butter (unsalted, 113 g); 1 tablespoon sugar; 1/8 teaspoon salt; 5 ¾ ounces flour; 3 tablespoon cocoa powder; 5 eggs; For the “Snickers” cream puffs you will also need; 1 recipe caramel mousse; 1 recipe Chocolate Mousse; Caramel sauce*; Chocolate Sauce:; 1 c chocolate chips; 2 tablespoon butter; Roasted, salted peanuts

Chocolate Pate a Choux (Cream Puffs) Recipe courtesy of Stephanie from Sweet Creations By Stephanie Makes 18 large puffs

Prep Time 10 minutes

Cook Time 40 minutes

Total Time 50 minutes

Ingredients

1 cup water
1 stick butter (unsalted, 113 g)
1 tablespoon sugar
⅛ teaspoon salt
5 ¾ ounces flour
3 tablespoon cocoa powder
5 eggs
For the “Snickers” cream puffs you will also need
1 recipe caramel mousse
1 recipe Chocolate Mousse
Caramel sauce*
Chocolate Sauce:
1 c chocolate chips
2 tablespoon butter
Roasted, salted peanuts

Instructions

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Boil water, butter, salt & sugar. Add flour and remove from heat. Work mixture together and return to heat. Continue working the mixture until all flour is incorporated and dough forms a ball. Transfer mixture into mixing bowl & let cool for 3 minutes. Put mixer on stir or lowest speed, add eggs, 1 at a time. Once the mixture is smooth, put dough into piping bag and pipe into golf ball size shapes, 2 inches apart on parchment lined sheets. Cook for 10 minutes, turn the oven down to 350 degrees and bake 30 more minutes. Once they are removed from the oven pierce with a paring knife immediately to release steam (otherwise they will collapse). Cool completely.

To assemble:

Cut the tops off carefully, and gently pull out some of the inside of the cream puffs. The inside will still be a little doughy, not crispy like the outside. Pipe in a large swirl of the caramel mousse then pipe a large swirl of the chocolate mousse on top of that. Place the cut top on and spoon over some chocolate sauce and caramel sauce. Top with chopped, salted peanuts. Can serve room temp, or chilled.

Caramel Mousse

Caramel Mousse and Sauce for Snicker's Cream Puffs

Prep Time 10 minutes

Cook Time 40 minutes

Total Time 50 minutes

Ingredients

3 tablespoons plus ¾ cup water
1 envelope unflavored gelatin
2 ¾ cups organic sugar
2 tablespoons honey
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 ¾ cups heavy whipping cream, room temperature
½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
1 ½ cups heavy whipping cream, chilled well

Instructions

Pour 3 tablespoons water into small bowl Sprinkle with gelatin; let soften while preparing caramel sauce.

Place a stainless bowl and beater blades of hand mixer in the freezer. Whipped cream whips up faster when the bowl and beater blades are well chilled.

Combine sugar, honey and ¾ cup water in heavy large saucepan. Stir over medium-low heat until sugar dissolves, frequently brushing down sides of pan with wet pastry brush. Increase heat; boil without stirring until syrup turns deep golden brown, occasionally brushing down sides of pan with wet pastry brush and swirling pan, about 10 minutes. Remove from heat. Add 1 ¾ cups cream and butter (caramel will bubble up and splatter so wear an oven mitt to protect hands from burns). Return to low heat and stir until its thickened and even texture.

Pour 1 ½ cups caramel sauce into a bowl and set aside. Reserve ½ c for the topping for the cream puffs and reserve the rest for another time, in an airtight container in the refrigerator. Set glass bowl with gelatin mixture in small skillet of simmering water. Stir until gelatin dissolves and mixture is clear, about 1 minute. Carefully remove the bowl and pour the melted gelatin into the 1 ½ cups of reserved hot caramel. Stir well and cool just to room temperature, stirring occasionally.

Remove the stainless bowl from the freezer and quickly pour the chilled heavy cream in the bowl. Beat the cream into stiff peaks and pour cooled caramel-gelatin ½ cup at a time over whipped cream, folding the mixture a few times before adding in another ½ c of the caramel. Fold again well, but slowly, until no white streaks are left. Chill mousse 30 min to several days ahead of time.

Yield: 18

Chocolate Mousse

Chocolate Mousse for Snickers Cream Puffs

Prep Time 10 minutes

Cook Time 40 minutes

Total Time 50 minutes

Ingredients

1 ¾ cups whipping cream
12 ounces good quality semi-sweet chocolate
3 ounces espresso or strong coffee
1 tablespoon dark rum (optional, can also substitute vanilla extract)
4 tablespoons butter
1 packet unflavored gelatin

Instructions

Chill 1 ½ cups whipping cream in refrigerator. Chill a stainless mixing bowl and mixer beaters in freezer.

In top of a double boiler, combine chocolate chips, coffee, rum (or vanilla) and butter. Melt over barely simmering water, stirring constantly. Remove from heat while a couple of chunks are still visible. Cool, stirring occasionally to about room temp, 30 minutes.

Pour remaining ¼ cup whipping cream into a metal measuring cup and sprinkle in the gelatin. Allow gelatin to "bloom" for 10 minutes. Then carefully heat by swirling the measuring cup over a low gas flame. Do not boil or gelatin will be damaged. Stir mixture into the cooled chocolate and set aside.

In the chilled mixing bowl, beat cream to medium peaks. Stir ¼ of the whipped cream into the chocolate mixture to lighten it. Fold in the remaining whipped cream in two rounds. There may be streaks of whipped cream in the chocolate and that is fine. Do not over work the mousse.

The Chocolate Mousse Recipe is Courtesy of Alton Brown via Foodnetwork.com and the Caramel mousse is a combination of my caramel sauce I make and ideas for the mousse from several sources online which at the moment I can't remember where!!

I also realized I can't take non-crooked photos to save my life.

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