Possible Allergy warning – please read all recipes carefully
and be aware of any allergies or sensitivities that may affect your health and well-being

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Please Fave the original Here

This is rather educational from !

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Please Fave the Original Submission here. - https://www.furaffinity.net/view/16523238/

Well here, vrghr huffed...and puffed...and puffed :P

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Making the creamed eggs in puff pasty was such an educational experience for thise wuff! Vrghr got to learn and practice all sorts of techniques and ingredients he doesn't normally use.

Puff Pastry sheets were one of those, and turning them into usable pastry cups was a fun, though not error-free experience. The photos show the final technique and the results of trying to do cups without the beans the parchment paper filling.

The lower-most right image was the first "ooops". Yup, you can line a nice muffin tin with puff pastry dough. But if you don't put something in the hollow of the middle, you're not going to get what you expected. (Note - you can still pour creamed eggs or other things over this little, squat, puff pastry "biscuit". It tastes great! But it doesn't look or perform the way wuff wanted.)

Several tips wuff learned are listed in his scraps post of the learning process, found here: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/16501585/ Here are some of the key items wuffy learned during his practice sessions:
- It really doesn't make a huge difference if you use a single square of pastry to make the shell, or use a couple of rectangles overlapped in a "Plus" shape, with the edges sealed to make a full container.
- - The overlap occurs on the bottom, and the beans hold the bottom from puffing, so it's just a bit thicker, which really didn't change the flavor at all!
- - WOOT for being able to use up more of the scraps of the pastry sheets!
- You don't need to worry about re-heating the pasty cup before adding the filling, even when completely cooled to room temperature; the hot creamed eggs warm it up perfectly well!
- Put a sheet of parchment paper down on your rolling surface when rolling out the thawed puff pastry at the start. Or use a "silpat" silicon baking sheet. Otherwise, the pastry likes to stick.
- Don't try to reuse your 'baking beans" for eating later. Just toss them, or save them in a jar for weighting things later. They're too dry and hard now to cook properly.
- You can reuse your parchment liners for the next batch of cups! Woot for more saving time and material!
- Let the dough thaw to the point where it rolls easily, but not so much that it starts getting sticky.
- - If it's just on the verge of getting sticky, "fix" it with a light sprinkle of flour. It if gets too sticky, put it in the freezer for a couple minutes.
- Rolling the dough out does several good things, especially since you don't want huge, thick shells, but thin, flaky, crispy ones to hold a nice portion of eggs
- - Dust the rolling pin, pastry sheet, and parchment paper underneath with a light sprinkle of flour
- - Roll until the sheet is about 30% larger than when you started
- - Roll both directions, up/down & side to side (spin the parchment around to make that easier).
- A pizza wheel cutter is the greatest thing ever, to cut your sheet for the cups!

Ingredients:

1 box (2 sheets) pre-made Puff Pastry Sheets
Parchment Paper
Cheapest dried beans you can find, about 1/2 C per muffin tin slot
All purpose Flour
Small bowl of water
Cooking spray (Pam)

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Remove the puff pastry sheets from the box. Gently pry the two sheets apart, and break free the folded sheet, but do NOT attempt to unfold until thawed.
(Trying to unfold the folded sheets will break them apart unless they're thawed first)
Allow to thaw for about 30 minutes (at room temp of 65 degrees).

Tear off a sheet of parchment paper about 18-24" long.
Place parchment paper on flat counter and sprinkle very lightly with flour
Carefully unfold a thawed sheet of puff pastry, and place on center of floured parchment paper.
Sprinkle lightly with flour. Rub rolling pin with flour.
Roll out thawed puff pastry until its about 30% longer and wider than it started.

Measure the diameter of your cupcake or muffin tins (wuff used a large muffin tin back sheet).
Spray the muffin tin interior with cooking spray.
Using a pizza wheel cutter, cut the puff pastry into squares ~half again larger than the width of the tins (I.E, for a 4 inch cup, cut the pasty in 6X6" squares)
Place the pastry squares into the tins, squishing the folded parts together and squeezing them up the sides until roughly all of the side is covered in dough, and the corners stick out the tops.
If you have extra strips of dough left, you can fill another tin by overlapping them in a "plus sign". Place one strip in the tin. Wet the edges of the overlapping strip by dipping fingers in the bowl of water and wetting around the edges of the pastry. Lay the second strip at 90 degrees, and stretch and squish the edges together, sealing them into a single cup.

Cut pieces of parchment paper roughly the same size or a bit larger than the pastry squares.
Place the parchment paper into the interior of the pastry cup.
Fill the parchment liner with dried beans.
Repeat all of the above for each cup of the muffin tin.

Place the bean-filled cups into the pre-heated 400 degree oven and bake for 10 minutes.

Remove the tin and, grabbing opposite corners of the bean-filled parchment, lift the parchment and beans out of the partially baked cups. It's okay if the cup comes out of the tin - just pour out the beans, remove the parchment, and GENTLY put the pastry back in the tin.
Save the beans in a container for re-use in weighting crusts, but DON'T try to cook them for bean soup! Nasty! All over-heated and dried out now!
You can also re-use the parchment liners if you have more cups to make.

Place the tin with the empty pastry crusts back into the 400 degree oven, and bake another 3 minutes to dry and slightly crisp the empty interior. They'll puff a wee bit, but not enough to matter.

Remove the tins and CAREFULLY remove the pastry cups. They'll be a bit more fragile until they cool
Sit cups aside to cool.

Note - if you're cooking more pastry cups in your muffin tin, you don't need to re-spray with the cooking spray; the pastry has enough butter/shortening to effectively grease the tin from the prior pastry.

Can keep over night on a cooling rack. Or can keep for 2 days in a large gallon zip bag with a paper towel to capture any humidity in the fridge.

Fill the cups with your desired goody!

Note - if serving hot fillings, don't worry about trying to re-heat the cups first; the heating filling quickly heats the pastry crust. You won't notice the difference.

Pastry Cups were used the creamed eggs recipe, found here: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/16522556/

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Vrghr also mentions: "Catya left Vrghr a GREAT tip to simplify making these -

Invert the cupcake tin, spray the outsides with the cooking spray, and gently lay the pastry over the bottoms of the tin! They may puff up like crazy on the outside, but the middle will be held open by the tin.

Vrghr needs to try that out and see how well it works, but it certainly sounds reasonable!"