These Gluten Free Cream Puffs are a pastry lover's dream! Just like the real French pastry, they're crisp on the outside, soft on the inside, and filled with diplomat cream.
Oh, man! It's been a long time since I've had a cream puff. How 'bout you? I remember making them years ago and sometimes filling them with ice cream and other times with savory things, like chicken salad. Those were the days, weren't they? When we could basically eat whatever we wanted?
Well, we still CAN eat whatever we want, as long as we keep working on those recipes we used to love, making them gluten free! If we can have great cinnamon rolls and pizza, we can definitely have great cream puffs.
WHAT IS PÂTE À CHOUX?
Translated from the French, pâte à choux literally means "cabbage paste." However, there's no cabbage in this pastry dough (thank God!). It gets its name because when baked, the paste turns into what looks like little cabbages.
Pâte à choux is more of a paste than a dough. It's made by heating milk or water with a decent amount of butter and a little bit of sugar until boiling. At that point, it's taken off the heat and flour is added all at once. The whole thing is put back on the heat to stir until a ball forms. Eggs are added, one at a time, until a smooth, shiny paste is achieved.
HOW ARE GLUTEN FREE CREAM PUFFS MADE?
Once the pâte à choux is made, it takes no time to make cream puffs. What I like to do is fill a pastry bag (I buy these on Amazon) and pipe my cream puffs. However, cream puffs can also be dropped onto baking sheets with two spoons.
If piping, begin by lining the pastry bag with a tip 1A large round tip or a tip 1M large open star tip. Hold the pastry bag at a 90-degree angle to the parchment-lined baking sheet and squeeze the bag until a desired round size is piped. With a quick flick of the wrist, release pressure. If a point remains, that's okay. Take a finger dipped in water and gently tamp that point down. Simple as that!!
MY PARCHMENT WON'T STAY ON THE BAKING SHEET. HELP!!
No worries! It happens to all of us. Before beginning to pipe, lift up the corners of the parchment and pipe a tiny dot of paste on the underside of each corner. Replace the corners and press down so the parchment sticks to the choux paste. This will keep it in place while piping 😉
BAKING THE CREAM PUFFS
I've found the best way to bake these gluten free cream puffs is to begin with a high heat, but go even higher once they're in the oven. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees and as soon as you put the puffs in the oven, turn it up to 450. Bake for 10 minutes and then drop the temperature down to 350 and bake 15-20 minutes longer, depending on the size.
When they look like they're done (golden brown and crisp), remove them from the oven. Take a small sharp knife (or even a sharp skewer) and poke the side of each puff to release steam. Return them to the oven to bake for 3-5 minutes longer. Allowing the steam to escape will ensure the interiors are completely baked and there's plenty of room to fill them with cream!
THE FILLING
When it comes to cream puffs, you can really go no wrong with what you fill 'em with. Like I said before, you can fill them with sweet fillings (such as whipped cream or pastry cream), OR you can go the savory route and fill them with chicken salad for little appetizer puffs. My chopped chicken salad would be perfect for this!!
But my absolute favorite filling for cream puffs is diplomat cream. What in the world is diplomat cream, you ask?? It's pastry cream with whipped cream added to it to lighten it up. Some might argue this isn't true diplomat cream because it doesn't have gelatin in it, but I disagree. The recipe I use for pastry cream is Gesine Prado's recipe and it is a gloriously THICK pastry cream and doesn't need gelatin for stability.
The pastry cream consists of:
- Egg yolks
- Sugar
- Cornstarch
- Heavy cream
- Whole milk
- Butter
- Salt
- Vanilla
After the pastry cream is made and well chilled, heavy cream is whipped to stiff peaks and folded into the pastry cream, turning it into a marvelously lightened cream that could be eaten with a spoon (if that's the way you roll)! Just save some for the cream puffs, will ya??
You may never find these in a real French bakery, but we can dream we're in France while devouring our homemade gluten free cream puffs, can't we? Oui, oui!!!
Gluten Free Cream Puffs
Ingredients
- 1 cup (240 ml) whole milk
- 1 stick (½ cup or 113 g) butter, cut into pieces
- 2 tablespoon granulated sugar
- pinch of salt
- 1 cup (140 g) Kim's gluten free flour blend (or any flour blend with xanthan gum)
- 5 large eggs, at room temperature
PASTRY CREAM:
- 1 cup (240 ml) whole milk
- 1 cup (240 ml) heavy cream
- ½ cup (100 g) granulated sugar
- ¼ cup (30 g) cornstarch
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract or 1 vanilla bean
- 6 large egg yolks, at room temperature
- 2 tablespoon butter, softened
WHIPPED CREAM:
- 1 cup (240 ml) heavy cream, whipped to stiff peaks
Instructions
- In small saucepan, add milk, butter, sugar, and pinch of salt. Stir over medium-low heat with a wooden spoon until sugar melts completely (don't rush this step). Turn mixture to medium-high until it begins to boil rapidly.
- Remove pan from heat and dump flour in, all at once, and stir with wooden spoon.
- Place pan back on stovetop over medium heat and stir continuously until mixture balls up and all flour is cooked out, about 1-2 minutes.
- Remove pan from heat and allow to cool for about 3-4 minutes.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer, with a hand mixer, in a food processor, or by hand with a wooden spoon, add eggs, one at a time, beating vigorously after each addition. It should be shiny and smooth, but it might be very thick, which is okay.
- Fill a pastry bag with the paste (alternatively spoon mixture onto parchment-lined baking sheets using a spoon). I prefer to let the choux paste sit in the pastry bag for about a ½ an hour to loosen up a bit before piping, but it's not necessary.
- Pipe large (about 2 inch) round circles onto baking sheet using a vertical (90-degree) bag placement. Using finger dipped in water, smooth or tamp down any points on top of mounds.
- Place in 425° oven and immediately turn oven temp up to 450° and bake for 10 minutes. Turn heat down to 350° and continue baking for about 20 minutes, or until golden brown.
- Remove puffs from oven and cut very small slit into sides of each puff. Return puffs to oven to finish baking and allow steam to escape for about 5 minutes. Turn oven off, open oven door, and let puffs sit in oven for up to one hour to dry out.
MAKING PASTRY CREAM AND DIPLOMAT CREAM:
- In small saucepan, heat milk and cream to almost boiling (little bubbles are forming around the edge).
- Meanwhile, in medium bowl whisk egg yolks, sugar, vanilla, and cornstarch until very light in color and thickened. Slowly pour about one tablespoon of hot cream mixture into egg yolk mixture, whisking constantly. Slowly pour the rest of the hot cream mixture into yolks, whisking constantly, and then pour the entire mixture back into the saucepan.
- Whisking constantly (you must use a whisk for this particular pastry cream), return saucepan to stove over medium heat. Whisk until mixture begins to thicken, like thick mayonnaise. Immediately remove from heat and whisk butter into pastry cream.
- Place pastry cream in medium bowl and cover with plastic wrap (plastic should lay directly on surface of pudding). Refrigerate for about 1-2 hours, or until cool and firm.
- Remove pastry cream from refrigerator and whisk to loosen. Add about ½ cup of whipped heavy cream into pastry cream to lighten. Then gently fold in the rest of the whipped cream.
- Pipe into centers of cream puffs as desired.
Adapted from Gesine Bullock-Prado's class Pâte à Choux Pastries: Cream Puffs, Eclairs, & More on Bluprint.
Marcella Holtz
I tried making cream puffs today, but they didn’t puff. There are a number of things I might have done wrong. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Firstly, I only had jumbo eggs and still used 5, one of which was cold. I assume 4 room temp ones would have been better. I think I made them larger, too. Should they be about the size of a golf ball before baking? I was too lazy to use a pastry bag, so used a scooper. Think I’ll try the pastry bag next time. I read your comment about your oven, so I started them in a 425 oven, but they started darkening, so I turned the oven down to 325 after about 7-10 minutes. I think my oven temp is accurate, but will test it. Do you thing using the convection setting would help? If so, do I set the temp 25 degrees lower? I’m going to try again tomorrow. Thanks in advance for your help!
Kim
You probably had too many eggs. I would start there first and then turn the oven down 25 degrees. I wouldn't use convection for this recipe.
Amy
Any info for high altitude, mine would come out flat-just flat-6300ft above sea level
Vee
Foolproof recipe! Beautiful rise and great crunch. I do have a question though. I used a dark pan to bake the choux and the bottoms are suuuper dark. I'd normally remedy this with a lower temp and longer baking time, but would this work with this type of dough? Or do I need to stick with the script?
Kim
Hi, Vee! I think that would work to lower the temp and bake a little longer. Truth be told, I need to revisit this recipe with my new oven. When I made these originally, I didn't realize my old oven was slowly dying and I think that's why I needed such a high temp. However, I can say with some confidence that I'm sure these cream puffs would be just fine (and probably better) with a lower temp. They are on my short list of my recipes to revisit in the very near future, but if I don't get to this one before you do, I'd try a 25-degree temperature decrease for 5-10 minutes longer and see how that goes.
Elyse Hahn
Made the dough recipe as a base for eclairs and it worked great. Will only turn oven up to 425 next time, they got just a little dark.
Kim
Hi, Elyse! Truth be told, when I first made this recipe, I didn't realize my oven was slowly dying so I think that's where the high oven temp worked for me at the time. But I now have a new oven and I have these cream puffs on my short list of recipes to revisit and check for oven temp, and I'm almost positive I'll find the same situation you did. So turning down your oven seems like a pretty solid solution. Sorry about that!
Sarah
Do you think this recipe would work to make French crullers? I would pipe it into a donut shape instead and deep fry it. I imagine it would work because French crullers are also made from choux pastry dough?
Kim
Yes, it would! I've made churros with this same choux dough. I would pipe them onto parchment squares and then freeze them for at least 15 minutes 😍
Cairn
I baked these at 10 minutes at 450 as you advised and they were almost charred. Still edible but the recipe instructs baking them for a total of 25 minutes more. Is there a typo in the oven temp? Or maybe my oven is broken...? Anyway, I asked my mom who is an excellent cook and she was surprised by that temp, saying she wouldn’t cook anything at 450.
Kim
I'm so sorry, Cairn! I'm not sure why you would have had charred cream puffs at only 10 minutes into the baking process. There was no typo, but you do need to turn the oven temp down to 350 degrees after those first 10 minutes. I've based this recipe loosely off a well known pastry chef's, who recommends starting the cream puffs at 425 degrees for the first 10 minutes. Maybe your oven runs a little hot. Having baked several gluten free items in the past 8 years, I have actually set the oven temp to 450 degrees many, many times. In normal (non-gluten free) baking, it's not that often that baking at such a high temp is done. But this is gluten free baking and everything is always a little different. If you want to try them again, I would turn the oven temp down to 425 for the first 10 minutes and then down to 325 for the final 20 minutes.
Cairn
Thanks for the thoughtful response. Just so you know, because it’s gf cooking I only cooked 4 of them initially (to be safe) so I was able to adjust and troubleshoot for a few more attempts. The last 10 or so turned out pretty well. Thanks again.
Andrea McClelland
I'm really excited to try these! They look amazing! One question though, can these be made ahead of time and frozen (if filled), or put in an airtight container (unfilled) for a few days? Or will they get soggy? I'm still pretty new to Gluten free baking so it's hard for me to tell what will happen. Thanks! 🙂
Kim
They won't be crispy as if they were fresh out of the oven, but they won't get soggy. I've filled them and put them in the freezer and they're just like those store bought frozen ones you see everywhere these days. If you want to crisp them up, I would stick them in a 350 degree oven for a few minutes 🙂
Laura
First time trying gluten free cream puffs. Turned out great! Tasted like it was a gluten dessert. Following your baking instructions made puffs crisp and dry which we wanted. Would highly recommend to anyone who is gluten free.
Glenda
These look amazing!
Kim
Thanks!!!