No matter how much I like living on Little Cranberry Island, it’s not always easy to come up with a topic for the Cranberry Report. This happens particularly in summer when life gets busier and it’s harder to find time to think. How fortunate I am to live on an island full of good cooks where the shared secret of a local recipe can bail me out just before a summer deadline.
On Islesford, if you ask anyone “What two words come after ‘Joy’ and ‘baking'” their answer will be “cream puffs” every time. Our postmaster Joy Sprague is known for making crisp tender pastry filled with cool vanilla creaminess and topped with a chocolate icing that has the most amazing taste and texture.
Joy learned to make cream puffs as a child from her mother, Betty Sprague. Both mother and daughter have made their mark in island folklore with these specialties. Betty often made cream puffs as refreshments after Grange meetings. On one such occasion Wilfred Bunker watched Raymond Spurling make a beeline for the largest cream puff on the plate. It happened to be the only one Betty had forgotten to fill with pudding so Wilfred got quite a kick out of seeing Raymond’s surprised face when he bit in to his expected bliss.
In 1992, when Alice Lake was the 100th Express Mail customer at the Islesford Post Office, Joy chose to commemorate the occasion by presenting her with a batch of homemade brownies. One year later, when Richard Hill sent the 200th piece of Express Mail, Joy thought it would be more celebratory to bake him a batch of cream puffs, especially since it was also his birthday. As Joy presented Richard with the plate of puffs, his wife Sue took a picture of them and the Cream Puff Hall of Fame was born.
When Joy thought it would be fun to celebrate these patrons more often than once a year, she started to present cream puffs to every 50th Express Mail customer and then settled on baking them for every 25th sender. Each time, a photo was taken of Joy handing a plate of her cream puffs to the lucky winner, and the picture was added to the display at the Islesford Post Office.
Everyone wanted to be in the Cream Puff Hall of Fame! Among the winners were the familiar island faces of Sig Harrison, Tom Olin, Henry Isaacs, Charlie Wright, Miklos Pogany, Chris Wriggins, Gail Stanley, Chris Costello, Frannie Jo Bartlett and Richie Stanley. Many of these recipients won more than once.
On the day Richie sent express mail before heading out to haul traps, he was out on the water when Joy phoned the Cranberry Isles Fishermen’s Co-op. She asked someone to call Richie on the VHF radio to let him know he won, and that he could pick up his cream puffs at the post office on the way home.
When he didn’t come by, Joy dropped the puffs off at his house. It was a total surprise to Richie since no one had called him on the VHF with the news. It turns out that “cream puffs” was the code Warren Fernald once used to let fishermen know the game wardens were hanging around at the dock. Though no longer used, the habit to avoid saying those words over the radio was still strong.
By 1998 the Cream Puff Hall of Fame had run its course, but Joy’s propensity for making cream puffs had not. Lucky us.
Joy often sells her cream puffs in the summer at an afternoon bake sale to benefit the Islesford Congregational Church. She has donated cream puffs to raffles, the Islesford Fair and the Fourth of July picnic. They are still the first dessert to go at a pot luck supper and the competition for them is especially strong when Joy donates them to an auction.
The recipe she uses for the pastry shells is pretty much the same as you’d find in any cookbook. Butter and water with a dash of salt are heated together. She beats flour into the hot liquid with a wooden spoon, and then beats in the eggs, one at a time, with a wire whisk.
“When you think you’re done beating, you probably need to beat some more,” she says. She also bakes her puffs at 450 degress for the whole time instead of turning the oven down. “Just don’t open the oven door while they’re cooking!,” she warns.
The exclusive taste and texture of her chocolate topping is the result of a happy accident.
“One time I was melting the half bag of semi sweet bits and I had the burner on too high. They started to scorch so I quickly whisked in some whole milk until everything was spreadable.” It worked out so well that the slightly burnt chocolate is part of her recipe. “Sometimes it’s hard to burn something on purpose without going too far,” reminds Joy.
And what about the luscious vanilla filling?
“I’ve even had a cook from New York City ask me about that,” she laughs. “It’s simple. I buy the store brand of instant vanilla pudding at Hannaford’s. The package is specially sized to make a batch and a half. I stir in 3 cups of whole milk and I’m almost done. My big secret is to add about 1/2 cup of sour cream to the pudding after it sets.”
Barbara Fernald lives on Little Cranberry Island (Islesford).