Easy Cream Puffs Recipe (2024)

FAQs

What is cream puff filling made of? ›

Light and airy cream puffs, filled with thick pastry cream, fluffy whipped cream, or velvety crème légère (pastry cream lightened with whipped cream), are a classic dessert. Composed of just two versatile elements—pâte à choux and the filling of your choice—they're also cinch to whip up.

Using only water and no milk would result in a rather pale cream puff shell. Conversely, only using milk gives a very brown cream puff shell. I like that, so I prefer the only-milk version. ? If you suffer from a strong lactose intolerance, you can use water instead of milk for the cream puff shell.

Why did my cream puffs collapse? If the puffs collapse it means there was too much moisture in them. So either you did not dry the dough enough, or they were not cooked enough. To avoid this I recommend drying the dough really well (see below) and cracking the door of the oven open when the choux are baked.

Can they be made ahead of time? Yes, you can make these cream puffs 2-3 days in advance. Store them in an airtight container in the refrigerator. You can also make the pastry cream a day or two ahead of time; just be sure to keep it cold in the fridge in an airtight container.

Choux Pastry can be used in anything from cream puffs, profiteroles, and eclairs to churros, croquembouche, French cruller donuts, choux beignets, and gougères! It only takes about 10 minutes to prepare and the options for filling and shaping are endless.

Cornstarch thickens the pastry cream without imparting a floury flavor. Bringing pastry cream to a bubble deactivates the yolk's starch-dissolving amylase. Finishing with butter adds shine and flavor.

Storing choux pastry / cream puffs for longer

The best way to store choux pastry is to freeze baked and UNFILLED cases in an air-tight container. When you're ready to fill them, reheat the cases in the oven to make them crisp again. Once cooled, they can be filled and served.

Yes they do. They can stay out for about 4 hours but then need to be refrigerated. How long will the cream puffs be good for? We usually recommend consuming the cream puffs the same or next day, after 2 days they will start to become soggy, especially if your refrigerator has a lot of humidity in it.

The first is that you may not have cooked out the moisture enough. Make sure you give it a full 2 minutes on the stove. The second is that there is no way for the steam to escape when the puffs are baked. To avoid this I poke a hole in the side of each puff with a knife as soon as they come out to let the steam out.

Bake until puffs rise and are golden brown, about 30 minutes.

Why do my cream puffs go flat when I take them out of the oven? ›

It may sound finicky, but cream puffs require a two-temp approach to baking. The first 15 minutes should be hotter — 425 degrees Fahrenheit. This will help the water in the dough turn to steam, and coax the dough into setting in time to capture that lift. If the oven is too cool, they won't rise and hollow out.

Also, if the puffs do not bake long enough, then they may taste slightly eggy because the insides haven't cooked long enough. We want the pastries to be crisp on the outside and dry on the inside. Solutions: Don't use too many eggs and bake long enough to dry them out.

I used a cookie scoop to create egg-size puffs, then cut them in half and filled them with all manner of lunch ingredients.

Cream puffs are full of cream (whipped cream or pastry cream), whereas profiteroles can be stuffed with anything—savory filling, sweet filling, or, as you'll often find in the United States, ice cream. Ice cream-filled profiteroles are usually served with a generous drizzle of chocolate ganache.

Bavarian cream filling on the other hand is a creamy custard-based filling that is used to fill desserts such as donuts. It's essentially a diplomat cream, which is pastry cream mixed with gelatin and whipped cream. This filling is thick enough to pipe, because it starts with the thicker and more stable pastry cream.

The only ingredients used to make puff pastry are butter, salt, water, and flour — no leavening agents are required.

Custard is actually any tart with a crust. So the custard is the actual dessert in many cases. Pastry cream is the filling.