Cream Puffs using Choux Pastry | Sweet, Filled Puffy Treats

The Best Air You’ll Ever Have

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Cream puffs use choux pastry and that makes them amazing, light and airy, filled with a sweet vanilla cream. You bake them 18 at the time, which is good, because that’s also the rate you’ll eat them at. You can buy the pastry but making it yourself is infinitely better. The vanilla cream is in one word incredible. Bake this – now. You won’t regret it.

I will list some tips and tricks to make this bake work for you every single time. If you know what you’re doing and you’re just here for the recipe, you can jump to it and bake away! 

If the Choux Fits

Choux Pastry (pronounced shoo pastry) or Pâte à Choux in French, is named after the French word for cabbage, choux, because the baked pastry looks like it. It is a famous French pastry that you can find in practically every bakery in France. It is light and delicate, and if you follow the instructions to a “t”, fairly easy to make. Although you can make it savory (think of filling with a salmon mousse, cheese mousse), the sweet version is probably how you know it. Maybe you’ve even seen the croquembouche: the tower of choux, glued together by caramel. We need to make that, one day.

Well-known pastries are eclairs: the oblong pastry, filled with crème pâtissière (or custard cream) and topped with a chocolate frosting or sugar icing; or think of profiteroles, which are similar in shape to the cream puffs but have ice cream instead and covered in chocolate. Churros, the deep-fried pastry covered in cinnamon sugar, is also based on choux pastry.

Follow the Recipe

Even though the pastry isn’t really difficult to make, there are a few elements that you have to carefully follow in order to make sure your pastry works.

• The ingredients measurements are important. Famous chef and author Michael Ruhlman mentions the weight ratio for choux to be 2-1-1-2, or 2 measurements of liquid, 1 of flour, 1 of butter and 2 of eggs. Note – that’s weight, not volume. Use a scale.
• There is no other leavening agent, other than the eggs. The puff comes from the eggs but mostly the water, that turns into steam. The steam in the pastry and in the oven while you bake, makes it puff up. For that reason, avoid to open the oven door during baking at all times. If you open the door, the trapped steam will escape, and your pastry will deflate.
• In order to get the steam, you start the bake at a higher temperature, and finish on a lower temperature. That is a simple as changing the temperature on your oven, and requires no extra steps beyond that. 
• After baking, there is still a little moisture trapped in the puffs. As soon as you take them out of the oven, pierce the puffs with a knife and let the moisture escape. If you don’t, you run the risk that your puffs will collapse. 
• You cook the mixture before your pipe and bake. This helps get to gelatinize the starches in the flour, thickening them. This is similar to when you make a roux for a sauce or soup. Using this technique, you ensure that the dough will keep its shape and the open structure when you bake. You’ll know when you cooked it sufficiently when the dough has a smooth consistency and a beautiful shine to it. 

Keeping and Freezing the Puffs

The puffs will be golden-brown and crispy on the outside and soft, almost custard-like on the inside. You can keep the puffs for a few days but they will quickly lose their crispiness. 

If you freeze the puffs, fill them with a cream of custard and make sure you fill them completely. When you need to bring them out leave them on your counter for 30 minutes to thaw, or in the refrigerator for about two hours.

Print Recipe

Cream Puffs using Choux Pastry

A quick guide to making rich, wonderful cream puffs with a delicious Creme Chantilly. Here's how.

Prep Time20 minutes mins

Cook Time35 minutes mins

Filling15 minutes mins

Total Time1 hour hr 10 minutes mins

Course: Cookies, Dessert

Cuisine: French

Keyword: Chantilly, Choux, Puff, Vanilla

Servings: 18 puffs

Calories: 70kcal

Ingredients

Choux

• 115 grams all-purpose flour
• 115 grams butter (unsalted)
• 115 ml water
• 115 ml milk
• 4 eggs
• 2 tsp granulated sugar
• ¼ tsp salt

Creme Chantilly

• 125 ml Heavy cream
• 2 tbsp Confectioner's sugar
• ½ tsp vanilla extract

Instructions

Prepare the Choux Pastry

• In a sauce pan on medium heat, add water, milk, butter, salt and sugar. Stir to make sure the butter melts. Reduce the heat before it reaches a boil.
• When it reaches a simmer, add the flour. Mix the flour and make sure all the lumps are gone. The mixture will form a rough ball. Using a wooden or rubber spatula, continue to press and stir for about a minute to allow the mixture to cook.
• Remove from heat and transfer to your stand mixer with the paddle tool or a bowl if you use a hand mixer. Let the mixture cool down a bit: don't add the eggs to a hot mixture as they may scramble.
• Lightly beat the eggs.
• Turn on your mixer. Add a quarter of the eggs to the mixture. The mixture will break up and look curdled – don't be alarmed, it will come together quickly. Add the following quarter, incorporate and add the third. The fourth quarter of the egg you add carefully: if the mixture looks nice and yellow, shiny, thick but you can still easily pipe, you can stop.
• Add the mixture to a piping bag with a large round nozzle and set aside. You can use a spoon to scoop the mixture, but it's harder to make them similar in size, shape and looks.

Bake

• Preheat the oven to 400°F/200°C.
• Prepare two baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone liner. Spray a little bit of water on the sheets for extra steam.
• Pipe round little blobs of pastry on the sheets, roughly 2 inches/5 cm in size and 3 inches/6,5 cm apart.
• Using a wet finger, flatten and smooth the top.
• Bake for 20 minutes at 400°F/200°C and then, without opening the door, reduce the oven temperature to 350°F/175°C and bake for another 15 minutes or until golden brown.
• When baked, place on a cooling rack. Using a knife, puncture the pastry with a little hole to allow trapped moisture to escape. We let them cool completely before we add any fillings.

The Creme Chantilly

• Creme Chantilly is sweetened whipped cream with vanilla. It is the best. Add the heavy cream, sugar and vanilla to a bowl and mix. You can use a hand mixer, stand mixer or mix by hand. It will take you less than 5 minutes to create the whipped cream.
• Stop when you have peaks that don't immediately fall over when you pull them up with your paddle, a spoon or your finger. To pipe into a cream puff, that's perfect.
• If you continue mixing, you will form the stiff peaks that hold their shape and are perfect for toppings. Mix beyond that, and you get vanilla-flavored butter.

Build the Puffs

• Put the Creme Chantilly in a piping bag with a sharp nozzle with a small opening. Pierce the puff and carefully pipe in the cream. You'll feel the puff fill up. Repeat.
• You can also cut open the top and pipe the cream in, and place the top on the puff as a little lid. I like the piped in way better because it looks cleaner.
• Dust with a little bit of powdered sugar. Done!