Hello there LLK friends! My boys are home for Spring Break this week, and we have all sorts of fun things planned to do together. So I won’t stay long, but just thought I’d pop in real quick here to share this Classic Cream Puff recipe with you, and then I’ll be back again when the boys are back in school.
I’m sure many of you have made cream puffs more times than you can count, and there is really nothing too special about the way I made them. But I thought I’d share since this was the first time I had ever made a choux pastry (pronounced like “shoe”) and it had been on my baking bucket list for a while. I hosted a baby shower this weekend for a sweet baby girl, and it was so fun to serve these classic little delights.
I filled the cream puffs with a simple homemade vanilla whipped cream, and dusted them with powdered sugar. I thought about doing a strawberry whipped cream (using crushed freeze dried strawberries for color and flavor) because I thought they might add to the girlie pink shower theme, but in the end decided to just keep them vanilla. Next time I’ll let myself be a little more creative.
There are truly so many wonderful things you can make with a good cream puff, both sweet and savory. I’m so glad I had the perfect occasion to make them for. You should have seen my boys when I gave them all the okay to come home after the ladies had left. They stood wide eyed at my little leftover dessert buffet and just gobbled everything up. Made for an easy clean-up!
Tips for Cream Puff Success
- If you want to make your cream puffs look uniform, scoop the pastry dough into a large plastic zip top bag (or pastry bag) and either just cut the corner off (about 1/2 inch) or use a large piping tip. I used a piping tip and tried to make my dough mounds tall rather than wide. For more rustic looking cream puffs, just use a spoon to make little mounds.
- Bake the puffs at 375 degrees for 25 minutes, and then use a wooden skewer to poke a few holes in the sides of each one, and then bake for another 8 minutes or so. This allows the steam to escape and the inside of the puff to bake properly.
- You want the top of your puff to be golden brown, and sound hollow when tapped.
- You can freeze the cream puffs (I froze mine unfilled in a plastic freezer zip top bag) and just thaw for an hour at room temperature the day you would like to fill them.
- Make your filling as sweet as you prefer. Start with 3 tablespoons of powdered sugar, taste, and add more if you like. Remember that the pastry dough itself is not very sweet, but will be slightly sweeter when dusted with powdered sugar.
- To fill your cream puffs, you can either cut off the top third, fill with cream, and then replace the lid, or you can use a filling tip to pipe the cream into the center. I find that this way is a little easier to to eat and counts as finger food, with no fork required.
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Classic Cream Puffs
- Prep Time: 20 minutes
- Cook Time: 35 minutes
- Total Time: 55 minutes
- Yield: 24 cream puffs 1x
- Category: Dessert
- Method: Bake
- Cuisine: French
Description
These classic little treats are so easy and fun to make, and are the perfect vessel for a homemade vanilla whipped cream!
Ingredients
For the Cream Puff Dough (Pâte à Choux)
- 1/2 cup butter
- 1 cup water
- 1 tablespoon granulated sugar
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- 4 large eggs
- 2 tablespoons powdered sugar (for dusting)
For the Cream Filling
- 1 1/3 cups heavy cream (well chilled)
- 3 tablespoons powdered sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
- In a 3- to 4-quart pan, combine butter, water, and sugar. Over high heat, bring to a boil and then add the flour all at once and stir quickly until the dough comes together, forming a ball. Remove the pan from the heat and stir until flour is incorporated and mixture is smooth. Let cool about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.
- Add the dough to the bowl of an electric mixer, and add eggs one at a time, mixing in between each addition until dough is smooth. Be careful not to mix more than necessary.
- Scoop the dough into a pastry bag or gallon size Ziploc bag. Cut off 1/2 inch of the corner and attach a large piping tip if you have one. Pipe 24 mounds of dough (about 1 inch around) onto a parchment or Silpat lined baking sheet.
- Bake for 25 minutes, and then use a wooden skewer to poke a couple of holes in the sides of each puff. This will allow the steam to escape so the cream puff can properly dry out and bake on the inside. Bake 5-8 more minutes. They should be golden brown and hollow sounding when tapped.
- Transfer the puffs to a cooling rack and cool completely before filling with cream. Dust with powdered sugar just before serving.
For the Cream Filling
- Add the heavy cream, powdered sugar, and vanilla extract to the bowl of an electric mixer. With the whisk attachment, whip the cream on low speed until slightly thickened, and then gradually increase the speed to high. Whisk until stiff peaks form, and then spoon the cream into a pastry bag or Zip-loc bag and attach a filling tip. If you do not have a filling tip, you can cut off the top of each cream puff and spoon the filling into each cream puff.
Notes
*Adapted from myrecipes.com
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 Cream Puff
- Calories: 109
- Sugar: 2.3g
- Sodium: 43mg
- Fat: 8.7g
- Saturated Fat: 5.3g
- Unsaturated Fat: 2.8g
- Trans Fat: 0.3g
- Carbohydrates: 6g
- Fiber: 0.1g
- Protein: 1.8g
- Cholesterol: 52mg
Disclaimer: the links in this post for the pastry bag and piping tips are Amazon affiliate links.
Catalina Gómez says
Hi i just tried the recipe and it works perfectly but in the moment i took the cream puffs out of the oven they just flattened :'( what can i do? Maybe it’s because the high altitude? I’m frm Bogotá Colombia (2600 meters/8600 feet above sea level).
Thank you!!!
Julie says
It could very well be the altitude, yes. I would make sure that when you take them out of the oven, they are well baked – even so that they make a hollow noise when tapped. I’m guessing they fell and flattened because they were not quite baked long enough. Thank you for saying hello from Bogotá! Good luck!
Kaia says
How cool should the dough be before adding the eggs?
Julie says
If you let it cool for about five minutes, it will be fine. Enjoy!
Julie M says
Just took the cream puffs out of the oven and they turned out AWESOME! Waiting patiently for them to cool to fill em.
Always do things on spur of the moment and didn’t have cream for the filling. Using cream cheese flavored pudding with cool whip folded in. Tastes pretty good for a last minute punt.
Julie says
Yay Julie, that’s great! I like the cream cheese and cool whip combo!
Shirley Skaletski says
can you freeze these?
Julie says
I haven’t tried it before, but I think that would be fine! Just make sure they are fully cooled.
Dana says
How to you suggest storing the not filled cream puffs? I made them one time and put them in s zip lock bag but when I took them out the next day to fill them they were soft. I’m not sure if I didn’t let them cool enough/dry before putting them in the bag.
Julie says
I think maybe I would put them in a ziplock, fully cooled, lined with a paper towel.
Jennifer Truong-Pugliese says
Hi
I tried twice but my dough doesn’t form in the pan
I don’t know why
It looks like lots of oil but I used the amount of butter indicated
Please help
Thanks
Lisa says
Hi Julie,
I made these today. Absolutely incredible!! 😍 I used Jello brand Vanilla Bean pudding for the filling, since I already had it on hand. I also served them with strawberries. So delicious! Cream puffs can seem tedious, but your recipe is really simple. Can’t wait to try them with other filling flavors. (Lemon cream, coconut cream, chocolate cream, etc.) I will be keeping this recipe in my favorites list!
Thanks so much for sharing!
-Lisa
Julie says
Yum!!!! So glad you had success!
Stacey says
Hi, I am a very skilled baker and I am very disappointed after following your recipe… The dough turned out perfect, but my cream puffs on the other hand did not using the piping bag method suggested in the recipe instead of cream puffs I ended up with little golden poop emoji puffs… If you want normal cream puffs I would suggest using a cookie scoop
hannah says
i don’t have an electric mixer so how do i mix the pastry dough otherwise?
Ava says
Thanks so much for this recipe, I will definently use it again! 🙂
Ann Marie says
I make these and fill wth chicken salad!
Gina says
Second time making these! Light and fluffy. My family loves them and I Love your recipes!!! Thank you
Ty says
I’ve tried them twice and both times they’ve turned out too eggy and won’t rise properly. Following to the letter, making sure each egg is fully incorporated one at a time, still just not turning out.