I can’t think of anything more tempting than these homemade Cream Puffs. Light-as-a-feather choux pastry, filled with whipped cream and dusted with icing sugar. Forget about diets – sink your teeth into one of these – you’ve earned it!
Homemade Cream puffs with choux pastry
If you’ve ever wanted to try your hand at making choux pastry, but were put off by the thought of how difficult it must be, then I’m here to tell you right now that you are mistaken. Choux pastry is one of the easiest and most rewarding pastries to make.
Once you have mastered the art of making choux pastry, there is so much you can do with it – cream puffs, eclairs, profiteroles.
It is also fantastic for making
My first attempt at choux pastry
Many years ago I was throwing a party for about 30 people, and racking my brains for a dessert that was quick to prepare and easy to serve. I’d never made choux pastry before, but I’d just seen a TV program where they made a pile of profiteroles stacked up on a plate. It looked pretty impressive and I thought that would make a good
I found a recipe for choux pastry, dug out my Kenwood Chef and whipped up a batch of dough. I was a bit dubious because the batter was quite runny, but to my surprise they turned out really well.
The first batch of buns were a bit big because I’d spooned too much mixture only the baking tray so I made another batch and has another go. By the time I’d got through the third batch of batter I had enough homemade choux buns to build a pile of profiteroles the size of Mount Everest.
I made a thick custard to fill them with, and drizzled them with melted chocolate. They looked and tasted amazing. I got so many compliments … ‘Wow, did you REALLY make these yourself?’ … and requests for the recipe … ‘You have to tell me how you made these’ … it was unbelievable.
Here’s a fabulous example of a croquembouche. Mine looked nowhere near as impressive, but it tasted good – so that was all that mattered.
Since then I’ve made choux pastry many times, and today I’d like to share this recipe for cream puffs with you. Crispy and light choux pastry, filled with whipped cream and dusted with icing sugar. Yum!
How to make Homemade Cream Puffs
Shopping list
Whenever I read a recipe I like to have a look at the ingredients to see whether I have everything I need. To make it easy for you – I’ve listed the ingredients below. You can get the full list of ingredients and quantities in the printable recipe card further down in the post.
You don’t need too many ingredients for this recipe, and you probably have most, if not all, in your pantry already.
- Butter – it has to be butter, not margarine
- Water – I know you don’t actually need to buy this, I’ve just included it in the list of ingredients for completeness.
- Milk
- White Sugar
- Plain Flour (or all purpose floour). Don’t use self-raising flour. You don’t need any leavening agents in choux pastry.
- Eggs
- Salt – this is optional but it does add to the flavour of the choux pastry
- Double Cream or whipping cream. Don’t think you can buy single cream and get away with it. It won’t thicken, even if you whip it all day.
Steps
The choux pastry for Cream puffs is made with a mixture of milk and water, butter and eggs, with a small amount of sugar
Melt the butter in the liquid Mix in the flour Beat in the eggs Smooth thick batter Place in the oven Remove and allow to cool
Melt the butter in the liquid
- Place the butter, sugar, salt, milk and water into a saucepan.
- Bring to the boil and stir until the butter has melted.
Add the flour
- Tip the sifted flour in all at once and beat
vigourously overa very low heat until it comes together in a ball.
Mix in the eggs
- Remove from the heat and allow the mixture to cool. This step is important because you don’t want the hot mixture scrambling your eggs as you mix them in.
- Once the mixture is cool add the eggs one at a time and mix thoroughly. The mixture will go lumpy as you add each egg. This is perfectly normal. Just continue mixing until the mixture is smooth again before adding the next egg.
- You could use a mixer to do this and save yourself a lot of hard work. I have a Kenwood Chef that blitzes this together in no time, or you could use a hand mixer. If you are feeling energetic, just use a wooden spoon!
- Once all the eggs are beaten in you should have a smooth glossy batter, which should hold its shape if you run the mixing spoon through it.
Bake
- Line a baking tray with baking parchment and brush lightly with water. This adds to the steam in the oven which will assist in the rising process.
- Drop spoonfuls of the batter onto the baking sheet.
- Depending on how large you want the buns to be you could use either a teaspoon or a tablespoon.
- Alternatively you could use a piping bag to pipe the shapes.
Tip – If you pipe long shapes with a piping bag, you could make eclairs – which you fill with cream and cover in melted chocolate
- In the photo above I used a tablespoon to drop the mixture onto the baking sheet..
- Keep them quite far apart because they will spread as they expand during cooking.
- Place the baking tray in the oven. Bake at 400F / 200C for 20 minutes. This which will allow the buns to rise up and expand.
- After 20 minutes turn the heat down to 350F/180C and allow them to continue baking for another 10 to 15 minutes which will finish off the cooking process.
Don’t open the oven door for the first 20 minutes or you will allow the important steam to escape and the buns will not rise properly
- Once they are done, remove from the oven and prick the side of each one with a toothpick to allow and steam to escape and to prevent the buns from becoming soggy and collapsing.
The aim is to get the buns looking like this –
Fill and serve
- When the buns are cool, split them and fill with whipped cream. Then dust the top with icing sugar and enjoy.
Equipment
To make this recipe you will need the following equipment. In case you are missing something I have included some links to my Amazon shop pages, where you might just find the item you are looking for.
- Kenwood Chef – this is for easy beating of the eggs into the flour mixture.
- Hand Mixer – you could use a hand-mixer rather than the Kenwood Chef
- Wooden spoon – with a bit more effort, you could mix everything with a wooden spoon
- Saucepan – for melting the butter and cooking out the flour.
- Baking sheet – for baking the choux puffs in the oven
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Recipe – Homemade Cream Puffs
Homemade Cream Puffs
Ingredients
- 125 g Butter (cubed)
- 125 ml Water
- 125 ml Milk
- 2 teaspoons White Sugar
- 150 g Plain Flour (sifted)
- 4 large Eggs (beaten)
- ½ teaspoon Salt
- 250 ml Double Cream (whipped until stiff)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400°F / 200°C
- Place the butter, milk, water, sugar and salt into a saucepan and bring to the boil. Stir to ensure the butter has completely melted
- Remove from the heat and add the flour all at once.
- Return to a low heat and mix vigorously until the mixtures comes together into a ball and the flour is completely combined.
- Allow to cool.
- Add the beaten egg a little at a time, mixing well after each addition to incorporate all the egg.
- Line a baking tray with baking parchment and brush .lightly with water. Shake off any excess water.
- Place spoonfuls of the mixture onto the baking tray. Leave about 4 cm between each one to allow for expansion during baking.
- Place the baking tray into the oven and bake for 20 minutes
- Now reduce the heat to 350°F / 180°C and allow to bake for a further 10 to 15 minutes until well risen and golden.
- Remove from the oven and prick each one with a toothpick to release any steam.
- Allow to cool on a wire rack and then fill with whipped cream. Dust with icing sugar.
Notes
The calorie count has been calculated using an on-line calculator and is provided for information purposes only. If the calorie count is important to you, you should consider calculating it yourself, using your preferred tool.
If you made this recipe and enjoyed it, please don’t forget to give me a star rating in the comments below. And if you’d like to get in touch, you can email me on [email protected] I’d love to hear from you.
Related Links
If you enjoyed my homemade cream puffs, you might like these other baking recipes.
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