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Our homemade Cream Puffs have a light and crispy pastry filled with an easy vanilla cream custard. Make this easy dessert for any occasion!
Delicious Cream Puffs with an Easy Vanilla Cream Filling
Cream Puffs are a classic – and very delicious – dessert that you can easily make at home.
A basic choux pastry (more on that below) is mixed together on the stove, then piped onto baking sheets, and baked to create light and crispy puffs or rounds.
After the pastry cools, it’s filled with our easy vanilla cream – a foolproof, shortcut version of a pastry cream that is less fussy to make than a traditional pastry cream.
You can serve your Cream Puffs with a sprinkle of powdered sugar on top, or dip the tops in a chocolate ganache. Either way, this is one incredibly delicious dessert!
What is Choux Pastry?
Cream Puffs are made from a basic French pastry called pâte à choux or more commonly, choux pastry. It’s made with butter, water or milk, flour, and eggs that are cooked together to create a consistency someplace between a thick paste and a wet dough.
When the choux pastry is baked, the heat from the oven creates steam from the butter and moisture in the pastry, causing it to puff up, then settle down on itself – creating a light and tender outer shell with a moist inside and a hollow opening.
Choux Pastry is used to make cream puffs (choux à la crème), profiteroles (round pastries filled with various fillings including ice cream), eclairs (oval shaped pastries with a cream filling and dipped in chocolate), and Gougères (savory round pastries with cheese added to the dough).
Churros are also made with choux pastry, but they are fried rather than baked.
Why you’ll love homemade Cream Puffs
- This is an absolutely heavenly dessert with soft pastry and sweet and creamy filling in every bite.
- It’s a versatile recipe – you can make large or small puffs and vary the filling or toppings.
- Once you’ve mastered making a choux pastry, you can make many other different desserts.
Key Ingredients & Substitutions
- For our Easy Vanilla Pastry Cream
- Whole Milk
- Whipped Cream
- Vanilla Extract
- Powdered Sugar
- Instant Vanilla Pudding Mix
- For the Cream Puff Dough
- Water
- Whole Milk
- Unsalted Butter
- All-Purpose Flour
- Granulated Sugar
- Salt
- Eggs
- Toppings
- Powdered Sugar
- Chocolate Ganache – made with semi-sweet chocolate chips and whole milk or cream.
Special Tools Needed
- Medium to Large Non-Stick Pot
- Wooden Spoon
- Various Measuring Cups and Spoons
- 2 Sheet Trays – Lined with parchment paper sheets or silicone mats
- Stand Mixer with Paddle & Whisk Attachments – A hand mixer can be used, but a stand mixer will make the choux pastry part of this recipe much easier.
- Medium Bowl
- Large Bowl
- Rubber Spatula
- Whisk
- 16-inch Pastry Bags
- Large Star Pastry Bag Tip
- (Optional) Kitchen Scale – To help you achieve equal-sized cream puffs
How do I make Cream Puffs?
- Mix the pastry cream by combining heavy cream, milk, vanilla, and pudding mix in a mixing bowl. Whisk for two minutes.
- Whisk more heavy cream and powdered sugar in a separate bowl until stiff peaks form.
- Fold the sweetened whipped cream into the pudding mixture. Cover and place in the refrigerator to chill.
- Start the choux pastry by heating water, milk, butter, sugar, and salt in a pan to boiling.
- Off heat, stir in all of flour with a wooden spoon then back on heat and cook the dough for two minutes. Cool.
- Pour cooled dough into the bowl of a stand mixer and beat with a paddle to cool further.
- With mixer running on low, add one egg at a time to the cooled but slightly warm dough and fully mix in before adding the next. After the last egg is mixed in, scrape the bowl, and beat on medium for one minute. The dough should pull up in ribbons of thick batter when you lift the paddle.
- Place half the dough into a 16-inch pastry bag with the tip of the bag cut off leaving a half-inch hole.
- Line a sheet tray with parchment or a silicone mat.
- Squeeze eight, two-ounce portions evenly spaced on the prepared sheet tray into a round shape about two inches in diameter and about two inches high.
- Bake 12 minutes at 425 degrees F and then lower to 325 degrees F without opening the door and continue to bake for 28 more minutes for a total baking time of 40 minutes. Remove to a cooling rack.
- Repeat with the second half of the dough. Let the puffs cool completely before filling with the chilled vanilla cream.
- Top with powdered sugar or dip the tops in chocolate ganache.
Tips & Tricks
Cream Puffs aren’t difficult to make, but they do require some precise steps to prepare them correctly:
- The dough needs to be the correct consistency – you want to see ribbons of thick batter when lifting with the mixer paddle. You may need to add a portion of another egg (more than is listed in the recipe) to get the dough consistency to this state. If the dough is too stiff, the center will stay uncooked while the outside overcooks.
- The baking time must start at a high temperature and finish at a lower temperature. The high temperature to start sets the structure of the puff and the time spent baking at the lower temperature cooks the inside. The finished puff should sound hollow when tapped. If pulled out of the oven too soon, the pastry will deflate once they come out of the oven. Err on the side of a longer bake time if you are not sure (but avoid burning of course).
- Do not open the oven door at any point during the baking time. When you change from the higher to the lower temperature, do it without opening the door. At the very end, sneak one out to test by tapping it to see if it sounds hollow but leave the pan in the oven. The puff should feel light and not dense. If not ready, quickly slide it back onto the pan and continue baking in two-minute intervals.
- To make it easier to cook the initial dough, choose a larger nonstick pot. The pot will seem too big, but the butter and water mixture will bubble up and overflow a smaller pan. It is also easier to stir and cook in a larger size pot after adding the flour.
- To achieve even puffs, we first weighed one uncooked on a scale to make sure it was two ounces. Then we tried to make every other one about the same size without weighing. One batch of dough will yield exactly 16 puffs at two ounces each.
Frequently Asked Questions
- Can I make Cream Puffs ahead of time?
- You can (and should) make the vanilla cream filling ahead of time so it is fully-cooled before being used to fill the pastry.
- The baked but still unfilled Cream Puffs can be made up to a day ahead of time. You can place the unfilled puffs in the oven for a few minutes to recrisp if you’d like, but allow to cool before filling.
- Once cooled, assemble the cream puffs for serving – up to 6 hours in advance to avoid serving a soggy cream puff to your guests.
- The choux dough should be mixed and baked all in one session.
- How do I store leftovers? Store leftovers in a covered container in the refrigerator for up to two days.
- Can I freeze the baked cream puffs? We don’t recommend doing so.
You might like these other Pastry Recipes:
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Cream Puffs
Our homemade Cream Puffs have a light and crispy pastry filled with an easy vanilla cream custard. Make this easy dessert for any occasion!
Ingredients
Filling
4 cups heavy or whipping cream (1 quart), divided
1 cup whole milk
2 one-ounce boxes instant vanilla pudding mix
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 tablespoons powdered sugar
Puff pastry dough
3/4 cup water
3/4 cup whole milk
3/4 cup butter (1 1/2 sticks)
1 tablespoon granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour measured properly (if weighing, 7.35 Oz or 208 grams)
6 whole eggs plus one more only if needed
Topping
Powdered sugar or ganache
Ganache
1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips
3 tablespoons whole milk or cream
Instructions
- Place two cups of heavy cream, one cup of whole milk, 2 teaspoons of vanilla and both boxes of pudding mix into a large bowl and using a hand mixer, whisk for two minutes. Place the last two cups of heavy cream and the two tablespoons of powdered sugar into another bowl and whisk to stiff peaks. Then fold that into the pudding mix. Refrigerate until later.
- In a medium nonstick pot or large nonstick saucepan, place water, milk, butter, sugar, and salt and bring to a boil. The mixture will foam up when it comes to a boil so watch closely.
- Turn off heat and add all the flour and stir vigorously with a wooden spoon or firm rubber spatula.
- Return heat to medium high and stir continually for two minutes. The dough will be soft enough to keep running the wooden spoon through as you stir.
- Remove from heat and pour into the bowl of a stand mixer. Place the bowl in the refrigerator for two minutes to start to cool.
- Place the bowl on the stand mixer and with the paddle attachment, beat on medium for one minute to cool further. The mixture should still be warm but no longer steaming hot.
- With mixer running on low, add one egg at a time, letting each egg get fully incorporated before adding the next.
- After the last egg is mixed in, scrape and mix for one minute. Take the paddle and lift the dough up. It should be thick enough to stay together but soft enough that it slowly drips down back into the bowl in a thick ribbon. If too stiff, beat one extra egg and add a little of that egg at a time until the dough reaches that thick ribbon consistency.
- The dough will weigh 32 ounces and will yield 16 cream puffs that are two ounces each before being baked.
- Preheat your oven to 425 degrees F with the rack in the center of the oven.
- Line a sheet tray with a silicone mat or parchment paper.
- Cut a half-inch hole off the tip of a 16-inch pastry bag or use a straight round tip with a half-inch opening.
- Scoop out exactly half and spoon into the pastry bag, leaving half in the bowl.
- Squeeze out eight piles of dough, twirling the dough around in a circle from outer to inner to about two inches wide and about two inches tall. Space them on the tray so they have two inches between each one.
- With a wet finger, gently press down the tip if it protrudes up. It will burn if not slightly flattened.
- Bake for 12 minutes and without opening the oven door, lower heat to 325 degrees F and bake for 28 minutes more. See chef’s tip above for precise instructions to get this part right. If you pull them too soon, they will collapse as they cool. They need to be rigid on the outside and when tapped, hollow sounding.
- Move each puff to a rack to cool, raise heat back to 425 degrees F and repeat the process with the remaining dough. (You should get eight per batch, reusing the sheet tray and silicone mat.)
- Once the puffs are cooled, place a large star tip in another 16-inch pastry bag and fill with the chilled vanilla cream. (It will not all fit so you will need to keep refilling.)
- Once all the cream puffs are baked and cooled, using a sharp serrated knife, cut each in half, separating the top from the bottom.
- Lay out all 16 cut this way and begin filling the bottom halves with the filling, dividing the filling between all.
- Gently place the tops over each.
- If using powdered sugar, dust the tops and serve.
- If using ganache, place a bowl or a small saucepan that has a few inches of water in it and heat burner to medium. Measure out the chocolate chips into the bowl to melt. Heat the milk or cream. Once the chocolate has melted, remove the bowl, and start whisking in the hot milk or cream. Continue to whisk quickly until smooth and silky. Either dip the tops in the ganache, or drizzle over the tops with a spoon.
- Serve immediately but keep any leftovers refrigerated.
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Notes
When making the ganache, use hot cream or milk. Cold milk will seize up the chocolate and you will need to be dispose of it and start over.
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