July 28: Low-fat, dairy-free seasonal Fruit Puffs!

Here's one for Miss Marple's Friend, who requested a low-fat dessert with a "plus" for seasonal fruit.
With that, the first thing I thought of was a low-fat fruit tartlet, but decided to opt for something a little less traditional.
For this recipe, I tweaked around a cream puff recipe to get this delicious little fruit bomb!

These aren't particularly sweet, but are a wonderful, light summer treat, perfect for a picnic or just for noshing on the deck with a good book (my personal choice).

You can fill them with either fresh fruit (sprinkled with sugar if you wish), or the filling recipe below.

For the puff:
1 1/3 cup water
1/2 cup margarine (as always, butter is interchangeable if you wish)
1/4 tsp salt
2 tsp sugar
1 cup plus 3 tbsp flour
4 eggs

For the filling:
3 sliced nectarine (or peach)
1 1/2 tsp maple syrup or to taste
4 good shakes of cinnamon or to taste

To make the puff:
Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
In a medium saucepan, bring the water to a boil. Add the margarine and salt and mix vigorously to melt. Bring back to a boil and add the flour all at once. Stir vigorously until the whole thing turns into a sort of ball-thing. Take off of heat and place in a bowl (the colder the better, since it's hot).
Add eggs one at a time, mixing EXTREMELY thoroughly after each addition. Each one should thin the batter at first, but don't worry - keep mixing until the batter thickens. It will. Add sugar and mix thoroughly.
Now, I put them in the oven in two ways: eight delicious puffs were dropped by the tablespoon onto a greased baking sheet, and eight were placed in greased cupcake tins (NOT in the papers!). I suggest putting them on the pan - the cupcake tins ones look sort of really silly and aren't very good for filling.
If you put them on the pan, they'll look really flat - don't worry, they puff up nicely. Bake for 20 minutes or until they look dry with no beads of moisture.
Cool on rack.

To make the filling:
Over low heat, cook the nectarine until soft. Once soft, add the maple syrup and cinnamon. Stir vigorously until hot and very, very soft. Take off of heat and let cool to desired temperature.

To fill, cut open the puffs - they naturally have a cavity once they bake. Fill very full and fill immediately before serving.

Makes 16 puffs.