Wintermelon has become an ingredient I am more and more familiar with as of 2024 – I have used it in mooncakes, milk teas, and now cream puffs! What I love about wintermelon is that it is nostalgic – my mom would make wintermelon tea for us growing up, which was just wintermelon cooked down with brown sugar into a syrup, then diluted with water. It was earthy, refreshing, yet comforting. Wintermelon itself, being a watery gourd almost like a really soggy zucchini, has very little flavor on its own. It kind of tastes like boiled daikon, if I am being honest. But when it is cooked down, those earthy notes do eventually come out, and while the fruit on its own has very little flavor, that earthiness plays off of sugar surprisingly well! So I wanted to use wintermelon, and combine that with these milk tea cream puffs that have been on my to-bake list all year, and make a dessert that really is both fun and nostalgic! I wanted to use Assam tea, which is a black tea with malty notes, since I wanted to make sure that the final dessert was not too sweet. With the wintermelon syrup or jam in desserts, that is almost pure sugar. So using a really rich tea, like Assam, works nicely here to temper that and keep the whole dessert from being sickly sweet!

In terms of the recipe itself, we have pate choux dough, which is what makes the body of the cream puff itself. It is a temperamental dough, so be sure to check your oven temperature because that can be the difference between light, crisp, buttery cream puffs or soggy, eggy flops. I am enrobing the puffs in a craquelin dough, which is a crunchy cookie dough, infused with assam tea so that it brings in more of that black tea flavor, while adding a fun texture to the entire dessert. The filling is a wintermelon-Assam tea namelaka. Namelaka is a gelatin-set whipped chocolate mousse that combines both modern French and modern Japanese techniques. I love using namelaka in my desserts, but I will be honest – this batch came out look WEIRD when I cut into the cream puffs. I piped the namelaka on top of the puffs as well, and that looked fine, but the namelaka that made its way into each cream puff, at least when I cut into one, looked curdled even though the top portion of the namelaka was smooth and creamy. So for the intents and purposes of this recipe, I included a step to puree all of the namelaka ingredients to prevent that from happening to your puffs at home, since I did not blend the wintermelon into the other ingredients, thinking that finely grating it would be enough, and that was why it ended up looking chunky and kind of like cottage cheese. That and I also lowered the amount of gelatin used, because the gelatin caused the mixture to set firmer, resulting in that strange texture. Just wanted to call that out before someone assumes that the intended appearance for the filling was to look like that.

Makes 8 cream puffs:
For the assam tea craquelin:
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp assam tea powder
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
a pinch of salt

Mix ingredients together into a dough. Wrap with cling film and freeze for 20 to 30 minutes. You want the dough to be cold but not rock solid at this step. Dust a floured surface and roll out your dough. Cut out 1-inch circles. Keep in the freezer until it is time to bake your puffs.

For the pate choux batter:
1/4 cup water
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
a pinch of salt
1/4 teaspoon granulated sugar
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 egg

Melt water, butter, salt, and sugar in a pot and bring to a boil. Add in your flour first and mix into a shiny ball. Place into a bowl and allow your dough to cool down to room temperature. Whisk in the egg. Transfer to a piping bag. Pipe onto a parchment or silicone-lined baking tray in eight 1-inch rounds, keeping them at least two to three inches apart. Place your craquelin onto the pate choux. Bake at 400 degrees F for 15 minutes, then 325 degrees F for another 10. Allow the buns to cool completely before removing. If the craquelin manages to burn on the bottom, simply crack it off. It should crack cleanly and easily. Cool down completely.

For the wintermelon jam:
5oz seeded and peeled wintermelon
3 tbsp dark brown sugar
1/4 cup water
1 tbsp cornstarch
a pinch of salt

Grate the wintermelon in a fine pulp. Place the wintermelon into a nonstick pan with the sugar, and cook the two together on medium heat until the sugar fully dissolves into the wintermelon, and the wintermelon itself starts to turn a dark brown color. In a bowl, mix the other ingredients together. Pour the cornstarch water into the pan with the wintermelon and stir slowly, allowing the liquid to evaporate and the cornstarch to thicken the wintermelon into a paste-like substance. Allow the jam to fully cool before attempting to use.

For the Assam tea-wintermelon namelaka:
1/4 cup milk
2 tsp assam tea powder
2 tbsp unsalted butter
1 1/2 tsps gelatin powder + 2 tbsp water
1/2 cup white chocolate chips
1/4 cup wintermelon jam
1/2 cup heavy cream

In a pot, heat up milk, tea powder, butter, and gelatin, bringing the mixture to a simmer. Once the gelatin is dissolved fully, pour the white chocolate chips and wintermelon jam into the liquid and allow that all to sit for 1 minute. Using an immersion blender, puree everything together. Once everything is melted together, pass it through a sieve and allow the mixture to chill down in the refrigerator for about 15 minutes. Transfer to a stand mixer with a paddle attachment and beat until soft, then fold in the heavy cream, stirring until everything is combined and velvety in texture. Transfer into a piping bag with a star tip.

For garnish:
.1oz Assam tea powder

Pipe the namelaka inside of each cream puff, as well as on top of each cream puff. Sprinkle the Assam tea powder on top to finish!