Light and fluffy homemade cream puffs with a vanilla cream filling. Easy pastry dessert that everyone will love.
This recipe comes all the way from my great grandma on the German side of my family! We tweaked it a bit by using the mixer to mix the eggs in to save on our arms, but other than that, this is the exact recipe!
These cream puffs are little pastries with a light vanilla cream in the center. They are so very yummy and easier to make than you think!
You can make these into mini cream puffs or you can make them a little bigger, about the size of a donut. The decision is yours! Obviously if you make the mini ones, you will end up with more cream puffs.
The pastry part can also be used for little appetizer sandwiches. You can stuff them with chicken salad, tuna salad, or egg salad! Cute and easy appetizer for any occasion.
Check out some of my other favorite desserts!
Homemade Cinnamon Rolls: Perfectly soft and chewy homemade cinnamon rolls. A breakfast treat filled with cinnamon swirl and topped with cream cheese frosting.
Bakery Style Peanut Butter Cookies: Bakery style peanut butter cookies that are soft and moist with a chewy center. Easy, fast to make, and turn out perfect every time.
Monkey Bread: Monkey bread made with frozen rolls, brown sugar, pudding mix, and butter. Just layer it all in a bundt pan for an easy breakfast treat!
No Bake Cheesecake Squares: A light and fluffy cheesecake topped with crushed graham crackers. A no bake dessert that is fast and delicious!
Scotcharoos: Scotcharoos are a rice krispie treat made with peanut butter and topped with a chocolate butterscotch mix. With only 6 ingredients these are super easy to make!
Vanilla Cupcakes: Moist vanilla cupcakes that are topped with a buttercream frosting. These are so easy to make from scratch using simple ingredients.
Apple Pie Bars: Homemade apple pie bars, all done in a sheet pan. Made with apples, cinnamon, and a flaky pie crust, this will feed the whole family!
Pumpkin Spice Cookies: Soft and chewy pumpkin spice cookies. A perfect fall cookie that is topped with a delicious cream cheese icing!
Ingredients for Cream Puffs
Butter: 1/2 cup butter
Water: 1 cup of water
Flour: 1 cup of white flour
Eggs: 4 eggs
For the Filling
Heavy Whipping Cream: 1/2 cup heavy whipping cream. Don’t substitute, otherwise it will not thicken up.
Powdered Sugar: 2 Tablespoons powdered sugar.
Vanilla Extract: 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract. Can substitute almond extract here, or use 1/8 teaspoon vanilla and 1/8 teaspoon almond extract.
Extra Powdered Sugar: for sprinkling on top of the cream puffs
Try making your own Homemade Vanilla Extract, its super easy!
How to make Cream Puffs
In a saucepan on the stove, heat the water and butter over medium heat until the butter melts.
Add in the flour and mix together until it forms a ball.
Remove from the heat. Add in eggs one at a time, beating well after each egg.
My mom and I made these together and we actually made two batches. The first batch we did this step by hand..the second batch we moved the dough over to the mixer and let the mixer do all the work of beating in the eggs! Either way works!
Continue beating about one minute or so until a spoonful of the mixture breaks away sharply.
Grease a baking sheet and drop by tablespoons onto the sheet. Depending on what size you want your cream puffs is how big you will make these.
The first batch we did bigger ones and dropped them on the trays by a scoop. The second batch we put the dough in a decorating bag and cut the tip off and squeezed them out that way. The second way turned out a bit prettier and more uniform.
Bake them at 400 F for 30-35 minutes.
Let the pastries cool on racks while you make the filling.
Using the wire whisk on the mixer, put the heavy cream, powdered sugar, and vanilla into the mixer and beat until thick and creamy.
Fill a decorating bag with the filling.
You can either choose to cut the pastries in half and fill them and place the tops back on like little sandwiches, or you can insert the decorating bag gently into the pastry and fill like a jelly filled doughnut.
Using a sifter, sprinkle the powdered sugar over the tops of all the cream puffs and serve!
Cream Puffs
Description
Light and fluffy homemade cream puffs with a vanilla cream filling. Easy pastry dessert that everyone will love.
Ingredients
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.
- In a saucepan on the stove, heat the water and butter over medium heat until the butter melts.
- Add in the flour and mix together until it forms a ball.
- Remove from the heat. Add in eggs one at a time, beating well after each egg.
- Continue beating about one minute or so until a spoonful of the mixture breaks away sharply.
- Grease a baking sheet and drop by tablespoons onto the sheet. Depending on what size you want your cream puffs is how big you will make these.
- Bake them at 400 F for 30-35 minutes. Remove from baking sheet and cool on racks.
- To make the cream filling:
- Using the wire whisk on the mixer, put the heavy cream, powdered sugar, and vanilla into the mixer and beat until thick and creamy.
- Fill a decorating bag with the filling.
- You can either choose to cut the pastries in half and fill them and place the tops back on like little sandwiches, or you can insert the decorating bag gently into the pastry and fill like a jelly filled doughnut
- Using a sifter, sprinkle the powdered sugar over the tops of all the cream puffs and serve!
Notes
- You can use a mixer to beat the eggs one at a time in step #4.
- You can fill a decorating bag with the dough and then squeeze out the size you want in step #6 to make the puffs more uniform in size.
More delicious desserts!
Banana Nut Bread: Sweet and super moist homemade banana nut bread. A simple and easy old fashioned recipe, with only 8 ingredients!
Blueberry Coffee Cake: Soft and moist blueberry coffee cake drizzled with vanilla icing. Delicious breakfast or dessert treat that everyone will love!
Pumpkin Squares: Moist cake like pumpkin squares with a whipped cream cheese frosting. These squares are the perfect autumn dessert that will feed a crowd!
Strawberry Bundt Cake: Strawberry bundt cake filled with fresh strawberries and drizzled with icing. An easy and delicious dessert!
Chocolate Zucchini Muffins: Moist and fluffy chocolate muffins loaded with fresh zucchini and chocolate chips. A perfect treat for the kids to sneak in some veggies!
Pumpkin Muffins: Light and fluffy, easy pumpkin muffins. A streusel topping makes these taste like they are straight from the bakery.
Peach Cobbler: A peach cobbler recipe that is sweet and easy. Comes together fast using fresh, canned, or frozen peaches.
7 Layer Cookie Bar: 7 Layer cookie bars are a mix of chocolates, butterscotch, coconut, pecans, all on top of a graham cracker crust! Baked in one pan for an easy dessert.
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