Of Chocolate Swans and Other Desserts

For a while I have wanted to make chocolate cream puff swans. I have picked a recipe. I have planned the steps involved in making them. I have even planned how to plate and serve them. I have visions of elegant chocolate swans with a light powdered sugar dusting swiming in a lake of chocolate dancing in my head.

But the reality is that I am a busy mother with a toddler who refuses to let me spend longer than 5 minutes at a time in the kitchen. And cream puffs, at least all the recipes I have, are time sensitive. You can't just mix in one egg into your heated dough and pop out of the kitchen to breastfeed your toddler who's on a solids strike for the day and then come back and mix in the rest of the eggs. It just does not work. Believe me, I've tried. So I dream of chocolate cream puffs and other desserts that I will make one day when I have time, energy, or a babysitter. In the meanwhile, I run in and out of the kitchen at regular intervals trying really really hard to cook something decent for dinner and to have it on the table before my husband gets home, late, as usual.