This eyeball monster is a choux puff that is topped with a crispy dough called craquelin and filled with green goo a.k.a lime pastry cream tinted green. It is crispy, light and refreshing!

Step 1: Make Lime Pastry Cream

Ingredients:

Egg yolks - 3

Sugar - 1/2 cup

Cornstarch - 1/4 cup

Vanilla bean or extract - 1 vanilla pod or 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Milk - 1 pint

Lime juice - 1 tablespoon

Lime green food colour - as required (I mixed lemon yellow and leaf green to achieve a lime green colour)

Method:

Scrape the vanilla bean into the milk (if using). Place over medium heat and bring to a boil.
Meanwhile, whisk the yolks and sugar together till it goes from bright yellow to pale yellow and thick. Whisk in the cornstarch .
Once the milk has just come to boil, take it off the heat and add 1/4th of the hot milk to the egg mixture while whisking simultaneously. This method is called tempering and this will prevent the yolks from curdling. Mix well then add the remaining milk.
Put this mixture back on medium heat, and keep whisking till it becomes thick and luscious. Don't let it boil, or it will curdle.Take off the heat. If you are using vanilla extract, now is the time to mix that in.
Place a piece of cling film directly on the surface of the pastry cream and let cool in the refrigerator for 3-4 hours.
Once cool, whisk in the lime juice and food colour.
Spoon into piping bag and refrigerate till needed.

Tip: this can be made 1-2 days in advance

Step 2: Make Craquelin

Ingredients:

Butter, soft - 3 tablespoons

Sugar - 1/4 cup

All Purpose Flour - 1/3 Cup

Sesame Seeds - 2 tablespoons

Method:

Cream the butter and sugar till well combined. Add flour and mix to form a smooth dough.
Place the ball dough between two sheets of cling film and roll it out thinly, about 1/10th of an inch. Press the sesame seeds into the rolled out dough.
Refrigerate for 15 minutes or till required.
After refrigeration, cut out circles from the dough. The circles should be the same size as the choux puff you intend to pipe out. Refrigerate them till needed.

Tip: this can be made 1-2 days in advance

Step 3: Make Choux Puffs

Ingredients:

Water - 1/2 cup

Butter - 1/4 cup

All purpose flour - 1/2 cup

Eggs - 2

Method:

Place the water and butter in a pan. Bring to a boil. Immediately turn off the heat and add flour. Mix well till it comes together.
Place the dough back on medium heat, and cook the dough till becomes a smooth ball. Make sure to keep moving the dough around. Let cool lightly.
Add one egg, and beat it till well combined. Now add the second egg. Beat again till well combined.
Pipe circles of batter onto parchment paper. Place a disk of craquelin on top of each choux circle.
Bake in a pre-heated oven at 425F. After 10 minutes, reduce the temperature to 370 and bake for 10-15 mins until golden. Turn off the oven and leave the door open to let the oven cool a bit.
Take them out of the oven, and make slits in the base of each with a sharp knife. (This lets out steam and this is where you will pipe the filling.) Now place the choux puff back into the slightly cooler, turned off oven. This ensures that the choux are crisp.

Step 4: Make the Eyeballs and Tentacles

Ingredients:

White fondant

Black food colour (mine ended up looking greyish purple for some reason!)

Method:

For the eyeballs, make little balls of white fondant. Use a toothpick to make black dots with food colour for the irises. Using some black fondant and make eyelids. Attach three of them together with a dab of water.
For the tentacles, colour some of the white fondant black. Roll them into ropes with a tapered end. Now place the tentacles over something circular to give them a wavy shape. Let it dry for half an hour, so that the shape holds.
Make the mouth with a fondant rope folded in half, and bent upside down.

Step 5: Assembly

Pipe the pastry cream into each choux puff.
Using water as glue: attach all the tentacles together, attach the cream puff to the top, attach the three eyeballs to the top. Place a small eyeball in each tentacle.

Your monster is ready! This is best eaten the day it is made.