Category Archive

Kachan’s home-made “ichiban” Choux Creme “Creme Puff” with fresh Strawberry and Kiwi Fruit

Going through my photo archives, I came across this set of absolutely awesome Choux Creme or “Creme Puff” pastries brought for us as Omiyage on Halloween this past year. Notice the Halloween-themed colors represented by the candy sprinkles. This being one of several holiday occasions throughout the years that we’ve been so fortunate to receive them.

And as they always are, these gems are the immaculate work of “Kachan”, a family friend of ours from Japan now living here, who over the years out of her home kitchen has absolutely perfected this delicate French pastry to a science and art.

The puff pastry “shell” here has that airy lightness to it, with a perfectly-crisped texture contrast provided by the baked-brown outer crust. The light-yet-rich, vanilla-flavored creme filling is so cool, smooth, and, well… creamy!

Size-wise, they’re a bit too large to pop each one whole, but with effort or a large mouth you probably could. Otherwise about two or three savoring bites will do it, which while doing so, you must be strategic in your “angle of attack” so the creme filling doesn’t ooze out, which can be a bit of a challenge, yet kinda’ fun and certainly a tasty reward.

While the chocolate shell and various other toppings are nice, what really kicks these up are the application of fresh strawberries and Kiwi fruit as shown on the left two, where the acidity and further dimension of texture those afford make eating these almost a spiritual moment. Seriously, they’re that good.

For a convenient retrospective, let’s look at some creme puffs we’ve covered in the past…

Beard Papa’s vanilla, chocolate and strawberry Creme Puffs (sans powdered sugar… booo!), $1.50 each

Liliha Bakery’s Coco Puffs with Shantilly topping (left) and Creme puffs with chocolate topping (right), $.80 each

Kachan’s Strawberry & Kiwi Fruit Choux Creme

Foodland’s Ala Moana Center store was closed for renovation for several months now, and just reopened their doors this past Thursday with a new Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, a Beard Papa’s, and an overall fresh, updated look.

Beard Papa’s is a franchise from Japan that specializes in freshly made Cream Puffs. Their Hawaii locations, which have been in the islands for several years now, are operated by Foodland’s Sullivan family. Which explains why many of their shops are located within their stores; the first of which to arrive on our shores being in the Waikiki Food Pantry supermarket. The last of which I’ve visited before this one being at the Koko Marina Foodland.

Beard Papa’s motto is “to only serve the freshest cream puffs”. With that, every one served is made from a choux pastry shell that’s baked fresh on site. They’re very light and airy, with a slighty crisp, browned outter crust, and by nature of a choux pastry, a cavernous interior makes them ready for the filling of your choice. The original vanilla custard filling is prepared fresh, flavored with hand-picked whole vanilla pods from Madagascar. Wow! There’s several other filling flavors to choose such as chocolate, strawberry, Grean Tea, Coffee and Caramel.

In my order today, I went neopolitan with the original vanilla, chocolate and strawberry…

Front to back: Original Vanilla, Chocolate and Strawberry ‘fresh’n natural cream puffs

The fresh-baked choux pastry shells are kept in a bin awaiting service…

The fillings aren’t added until the customer makes the order. Upon making your choice(s), the custard is injected from a pump canister nozzle, as you can partially see in this photo…

So how are they? First of all, after looking at Ono Kine Grindz post about the place, I notice Reid’s order had an abundant dose of powdered sugar on it… hey, where’s mine!? That indeed would’ve added a nice extra kick of sweetness to it. And I didn’t have any powdered sugar in the pantry to add my own.. oh well. Next time I may have to remind them!

Although they claim it’s made with “two European Chocolates”, I didn’t care for the chocolate one too much, as it wasn’t quite sweet enough, and wasn’t as complimentary to the choux pastry as the other two were. Perhaps that powdered sugar on top would have helped here.

The strawberry flavor tasted genuine to the actual fruit, with pulverized bits visually seen in it. It even has a slight tang which makes it that much more convincing, and not so “candy-like”. Pretty good. I bet the Éclair version, with dark chocolate over the top would make this one dynamite.

By far, the original Vanilla is the one to get, and defines what Beard Papa’s is all about. Light and creamy, not too heavy or oversweet, and whatever this madagascar vanilla is, it’s doing a good job here. That cool, creamy custard, combined with the airy and crisp choux shell is a fantastic flavor and texture combination. Just overall yummy.. oishii!

Japanese have a great reputation for quality packaging, and Beard Papa’s is no exception, where they’re off to go in this nifty little carry box…

And each one has their own package wrapper to hold while you eat so the cream filling (which is kind of loose) doesn’t drip on your hands…

They cost $1.65 each for the vanilla and $1.85 for the other flavors, which can add up if you’re planning to buy a few dozen for the office gang. But if you’re just going for a one’z-two’z, not a problem.

Freshness is key here, and with that, they date stamp your order, with a reminder to keep them refrigerated and (preferably) consumed within the day you bought them…

Foodland Ala Moana’s renovated storefront, located street level on the mauka-ewa side of the center near Sears

For more information, visit their Hawaii website at:
www.BeardPapasHawaii.com

Tasty Island rating:

Supah’ Ono!

…although next time, don’t forget the powdered sugar!