Cream Puffs (Pate a Choux) (2024)

Published: Mar 3, 2023 · Modified: Mar 12, 2024 by Shiran · This post may contain affiliate links · Leave a Comment

These classic French cream puffs are light, delicate, and filled with fluffy, sweet whipped cream and dusted with powdered sugar.

While I love creating and baking incredibly simple recipes, like small batch chocolate chips cookies and chocolate Nutella cake, sometimes it’s fun to create classic French pastries that require a little more work, too, like cream puffs.

Cream puffs are delicate bites of crisp pastry filled with fluffy whipped cream. They aren’t too difficult to make and taste incredible! If you’ve ever taken a trip to France, you’ll see these pastries lining the shelves of almost every bakery you enter.

What are cream puffs?

Cream puffs, or profiteroles in French, are a classic French dessert made from a type of dough called pate a choux. When piped and baked, pate a choux has a slightly crispy exterior and light and hollow inside, making it the perfect vessel for filling.

Pate a choux is unique because you need to cook the dough on the stovetop for a minute or two to cook the flour before adding the eggs. Cooking the flour before baking helps create their unique texture and hollow centers. Then, you add the eggs gradually until the dough reaches a pipeable consistency. You pipe the dough into small circles and bake them, creating perfectly light balls of pastry. The outsides are crunchy and the insides should be slightly wet and custardy. Once cooled, you can fill them with all types of fillings. This recipe calls for a Chantilly cream, which is sweetened vanilla whipped cream.

Some other French pastries made with pate a choux dough are eclairs and Paris-Brest.

See Also

Cream Puffs (Easy Filling)Perfect Cream Puffs Recipe (For Beginners)Foolproof Cream PuffsChoux à la Crème (French Cream Puffs)

How to make cream puffs

To make cream puffs, first you’ll need to make the pate a choux dough and bake it. Then, they get filled with light and fluffy Chantilly cream (which is just whipped cream with powdered sugar and vanilla extract).

Make the pate choux dough

1. Place butter, milk, water, sugar, and salt in a saucepan. Heat on the stove until the butter is melted and the sugar is dissolved.
2. Pour all the flour at once into the pot. Stir until the flour is completely incorporated and a thick dough clumps into a ball. Beat the dough ball against the bottom and sides of the pan for 1 minute on medium heat, which gently cooks the flour (Note: You’ll know the dough is ready for the next step when it easily pulls away from the sides of the pot).
3. Remove the dough from the heat and place in a mixer fitted with the paddle attachment (You can also do this with a handheld mixer or by hand with a whisk, but it is more difficult to incorporate the eggs by hand).
4. Whisk the eggs together in a small bowl. Turn the mixer on medium speed and slowly and gradually add the eggs a bit at a time (about the amount of one egg). Allow the mixer to incorporate all the egg before adding more.
5. When you have about the amount of one egg left, add it bit by bit until the dough reaches a soft, shiny, pipeable consistency.

Helpful notes:

The amount of egg fluctuates because when you cook the dough on the stove, it’s impossible to control exactly how much liquid will evaporate and how dry the dough will get. So the important thing when adding the eggs is to check the dough between each addition. Once it reaches the a shiny, pipeable consistency, don’t add any more egg.

If you accidentally add too much egg and your dough is too thin, make ¼-1/2 of the recipe again on the stove top and add it gradually to the runny pate a choux until it reaches the correct consistency.

Pipe and bake the cream puffs

• Pastry bag or large Ziploc bag
• Circle tip, about 1-cm in diameter

1. Line two sheet pans with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat.
2. Place your star tip either in a pastry bag or in the corner of a Ziploc bag. Cut a hole to bit the tip and then fill the bag with pate a choux.
3. Pipe 1 ½-2 inch mounds about 3 inches apart, keeping your piping bag at a 90-degree angle so they bake straight and not lopsided. Pipe continuously so the mound has the shape of a Hershey kiss.
4. If you have sharp points on the tops of the mounds when you lift the piping bag, wet your finger and press them down.
5. Bake for 15 mins at 400°F. Then, lower the temperature to 350°F with the cream puffs still in the oven and bake another 12-15 minutes until the tops are a golden brown.
6. Allow to cool completely before filling.

Make the Chantilly cream

1. Place cold cream, powdered sugar and a scraped vanilla bean or vanilla extract in a mixer bowl fitted with the whisk attachment.
2. Whip until medium peaks form.

Filling the cream puffs

Once you’ve baked the cream puffs and they’ve cooled completely, you can fill them with Chantilly cream.

1. Use a pairing knife to poke a hole in the bottom of each cream puff.
2. Place the Chantilly cream in a piping bag and cut a small hole in the bag. Evenly deposit the cream into each cream puff through the hole in the bottom. Alternatively, you can split the cream puffs in half, cutting them horizontally, and fill the bottom part with cream. To make them look extra fancy, use a star tip and swirl the cream. Place the top half on top so it looks like a small sandwich.
3. Dust with powdered sugar using a fine mesh strainer.

Please note, cream puffs are best served the day they are made. You want the pate a choux fresh and not soggy, but I find they are still tasty the next day (just slightly softer).

Tips for making cream puffs (pate a choux)

Pate a choux takes a bit of technique to master, so be sure to read my tips below to make your cream puffs come out perfect:

• Cooking the flour with the wet ingredients and sugar IS necessary – do not skip this step. This step cooks the flour slightly, which helps the dough puff up and create hollow shells.
• Be careful when adding the eggs to the pate a choux. The amount of eggs will vary slightly depending how much liquid evaporates when cooking the dough on the stovetop. This is why there is always a range in the amount of egg in pate a choux recipes. Add a bit of egg at a time and mix the dough together to check the consistency before adding the next. Once you’ve reached the right consistency, DO NOT add any more egg. If you accidentally add too much egg and your dough is too runny, make ¼-1/2 of the recipe again on the stove top and add it gradually to the runny pate a choux until it reaches the correct consistency.
• Apply even pressure when piping the dough. Keep your piping bag at a 90-degree angle when piping your cream puffs. Apply even pressure so the dough pipes continuously. Do not start and stop.
• Whip the cream when it’s cold. Cold whipped cream is much easier to whip than room temperature. Leave the cream in the fridge until you are ready to whip it up into Chantilly cream.

Can I freeze cream puffs?

You shouldn’t freeze cream puffs once they are filled. You can freeze the unfilled shells in a closed container or Ziploc bag for up to 2 months. To use, bring them to room temperature. Then, line cream puff shells on a sheet pan and place in a 350°F/180° oven for 5 minutes to crisp up. Allow to cool completely before filling.

More recipes you’ll enjoy

• Nutella Tart: Made of rich hazelnut crust and a simple, super creamy Nutella filling.
• White and Dark Chocolate Marble Cake: Rich, buttery pound cake swirled with both white and bittersweet chocolate cakes.
• Pumpkin Cheesecake: Rich, creamy, and bursting with pumpkin flavor.
• Carrot Loaf Cake: Moist and tender carrot cake topped with fluffy cream cheese frosting.