Cream Puffs using Choux Pastry
A quick guide to making rich, wonderful cream puffs with a delicious Creme Chantilly. Here's how.
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!