Cream Puffs with Pumpkin Spice Whipped Cream

Preheat your oven to 400 F.

In a medium sized saucepan over medium heat, combine butter, water, salt and sugar. Let the butter melt and bring to a rolling boil. Add in the flour all at once and with a wooden spoon, stir vigorously to combine and moisten the flour.

Continue cooking and stirring over medium high heat until the dough has smoothed out and seems to have evaporated all the moisture. Remove from heat.

Transfer dough to the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Mix the dough on low speed to allow the heat and moisture to escape.

Once the dough has cooled slightly, after about 1-2 minutes, start to add your eggs one at a time. Mixture is going to look like a lumpy, curdled mess but it will come together. Once the dough has absorbed the egg, add each additional egg until you end up with an elastic dough.

Using a pastry bag or cookie scoop, pipe or scoop dough into balls onto a parchment lined baking sheet. Smooth the tops with a little water on your fingers until dough is smooth.

Bake in your preheated oven for 20 minutes and then reduce the heat to 350 F and bake for another 15-20 minutes. Remove from oven.

Place cream puffs on a rack to cool. Once cooled, use a sharp knife to split each cream puff in half. Fill them with the pumpkin spice whipped cream, or other filling of your choosing.

For the whipped cream: Place cold heavy cream in the bowl of a standing mixer with the whisk attachment and beat on high speed until soft peaks form. Pour in powdered sugar, vanilla, pumpkin and spices and beat until stiff peaks form. Pipe in the center of each pastry or enjoy on other desserts.