For these homemade Cream Puffs, an easy choux pastry dough is mixed together, then baked and filled with a rich vanilla pastry cream.
Ingredients
For the choux dough:
1cupwater
1/2cupunsalted butter
5ozall purpose flour, by weight(1 cup, measured)
pinch of salt
5large eggs
For the vanilla pastry cream filling:
2cupswhole milk
1/2cup+ 2 tbsp sugar
5egg yolks
1/4cupcornstarch
2tspvanilla extract
pinch of salt
1/2cupheavy whipping cream
Instructions
Make the cream puffs:
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F and line two baking sheets with parchment paper or silpats.
Place the water and butter in a saucepan and melt over medium high heat.
Dump the flour and salt in all at once and stir, on the heat, for 2-3 minutes until the mixture is smooth and the dough falls away from the sides of the pan.
Transfer the dough to a food processor and let it cool for five minutes.
Add all the eggs, and pulse the mixture until the dough is smooth and has fully incorporated the eggs. The dough should look like a thick cake batter.
Transfer this choux dough into a piping pag and pipe out small mounds of dough, about an inch in diameter, and about 1/2 inch tall. They will puff up considerably and you don’t want to make them too tall.
Bake for about 25 minutes until the puffs are golden brown, then remove them from the oven and use a knife to poke a small hole into each of the puffs. This will let the steam escape and prevent our puffs from getting soggy. Let cool completely.
Make the filling:
To make the pastry cream, scald the milk in a saucepan over medium high heat (you want to cook the milk to about 180 degrees F, when little bubbles start to form on the side of the pan. This is the stage before a boil).
While the milk heats up, whisk to combine 1/2 cup sugar, the egg yolks, and cornstarch.
Once the milk has come to the right temperature, slowly dribble the milk into the egg yolk mixture while whisking constantly, then return all of the liquid to the pan.
Cook over medium high heat, stirring constantly, for the next minute or two, until the mixture comes to a boil and the mixture thickens up considerably.
Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the vanilla and a pinch of salt. Taste and adjust vanilla and salt levels if needed. Chill the pastry cream in the fridge while you make the cream.
Combine the heavy whipping cream and 2 tbsp sugar in a bowl and whip with either a hand mixer or a whisk until it forms soft peaks.
Fold this mixture gently into the pastry cream to lighten it. You can now fill the puffs with this mixture, or you can chill it if you prefer. To fill, use a piping bag or simply cut the cream puffs in half and put the top back on after filling. Enjoy!
Notes
Storing leftovers: You can refrigerate these for a day or two, or freeze for up to 1 month, but know that once you refrigerate or freeze the dough, it won’t taste as good. The dough will be a bit stale.Freezing: Store in an airtight container for one month.Make-ahead Option: While you can make these a day or two ahead of time, know that they won't taste as good as when freshly made. A compromise would be to make the filling up to 3 days in advance.