This Gluten Free Pâte à Choux makes puffs that are crisp on the outside and soft on the inside, just like the real French pastry.
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I first made this recipe and posted it back in 2019 and I’m updating it today with a slightly tweaked recipe, lots of new tips and tricks, an in-depth video, and plenty of detailed pictures. It is now one of my family’s (especially my son’s) most beloved treats.
What Is Pâte à Choux?
Translated from the French, pâte à choux literally means "cabbage pastry." 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.
Here's What You'll Need for Gluten Free Pâte à Choux
- Gluten free flour blend – this recipe can be made with either my gf all purpose flour blend OR my gf bread flour blend. My personal preference is the bread flour blend as it makes a sturdier, more crisp pastry. You may be able to substitute a store bought blend for either, but please note that this has not been tested.
- Eggs – eggs are essential to pate a choux. They are what makes the pastry puff.
- Milk – I use a combination of equal parts water and milk in this choux paste. However, if you are dairy free, you can use all water or dairy-free milk with similar results.
How to Make Choux Paste
Bring water, milk, sugar, salt, and butter to a boil in a small saucepan.
Off heat, add gluten free flour blend, all at once, and stir well to combine.
Place back over heat and cook, stirring constantly, until a thin film appears on bottom of pan. Remove from heat and dump dough into a large mixing bowl. Let cool for 1-2 minutes.
Whisk together eggs in a measuring cup.
With mixer running on low, add roughly one egg’s worth to dough and mix until fully incorporated. Mixture will start out looking very curdled, but will smooth as it mixes further.
Continue adding eggs, a little at a time, until all 5 eggs have been added. Increase to medium speed and continue to mix until dough is smooth, slightly elastic looking, and drops from the beater blade very slowly into a “V” shape.
Making Cream Puffs or Profiteroles
Pipe or dollop dough onto parchment or silicone-lined baking sheets a few inches apart.
Use finger dipped in water to gently flatten any peaks and sprinkle puffs with powdered sugar. Bake at 400 F for 5 minutes. Turn heat down to 375 F and continue to bake for 20 minutes.
Remove from the oven and poke the bottoms with either a skewer for profiteroles or a chopstick for filled cream puffs. Return to the oven, now turned off with the door propped open, for the puffs to dry out and stay crisp. Cut in half and fill with whipped cream and drizzle with chocolate sauce for profiteroles or pipe pastry cream into bottom hole for cream puffs.
Pâte à Choux FAQs
Pâte à choux literally translates to “cabbage pastry.” Thankfully, there is no actual cabbage in pate a choux. Choux (pronounced “shoe”) means cabbage in French and choux pastry often resembles little cabbages.
Easy. Just take a tiny bit of the choux paste and use it under each corner to “glue” the paper to the baking sheet.
Unbaked choux paste will last for a total of 3 days. Once baked, cream puffs will keep for 5 days in the fridge, or can be frozen (filled or unfilled) for up to a month.
Substitutions
- Dairy free? Yes, these can be made dairy free! Use dairy-free butter and milk.
- Egg free? No, unfortunately eggs are essential to choux paste.
Filling Ideas (Both Sweet and Savory)
- Pastry cream – AKA crème patissiere, this is the most common filling for cream puffs. Fold whipped cream in it to lighten and you’ve got diplomat crème.
- Ice cream – traditional profiteroles are cut in half horizontally and filled with vanilla ice cream, but BYOC (be your own chef) and fill them with your favorite flavor of ice cream. Add a drizzle of chocolate ganache on top for the ultimate dessert (perfect for parties, too as they can be frozen and drizzled with ganache just before serving).
- Whipped cream – for a different and simpler approach to profiteroles, fill them with sweetened whipped cream and sprinkle them with powdered sugar.
- Chicken salad – cut the cream puffs in half horizontally and stuff them with any of my three chicken salads (classic chicken salad, easy and delicious chicken salad, or curry chicken salad) and serve as appetizers! My mom used to do this when I was a kid for dinner parties.
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 Pate a Choux
Ingredients
- ½ cup (120ml) water
- ½ cup (120ml) whole milk
- 1 stick (½ cup or 113g) butter, cut into pieces
- 1 tbsp (12g) granulated sugar
- pinch of salt
- 1 cup (140g) Kim's gluten free bread flour blend (my gf AP flour blend or a store bought blend may be substituted, although a store bought blend has not been tested)
- 5 large eggs, at room temperature
Instructions
- In a small saucepan, add water, milk, butter, sugar, and pinch of salt. Stir over medium-low heat with a wooden spoon until butter 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 a wooden spoon or silicone spatula.
- 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. A film will form on the bottom of the pan.
- Remove the pan from the heat and dump dough into another large bowl or bowl of a stand mixer. Cool for 1-2 minutes.
- Preheat oven to 400° F.
- Whisk eggs in a measuring cup and with mixer running, add a little bit of egg at a time (about one egg's worth), beating well after each addition. It should be shiny and smooth, but it might be very thick. Keep adding eggs and mixing until paste has movement, but is not fluid like, and when the beater blade is lifted, a "V" forms.
- 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 absolutely necessary.
- Pipe small or large round circles onto parchment lined or silicone baking mat-lined baking sheets using a vertical (90-degree) bag placement. Squeeze until the puffs are the desired size, stop squeezing and release, and flick your wrist in one motion while lifting bag up. Using finger dipped in water, smooth or tamp down any points on top of the dough.
- Sift powdered sugar over puffs and bake at 400°F for 5 minutes. Decrease heat to 375°F and continue baking for 20 minutes.
- Remove puffs from oven and carefully poke a chopstick into the bottom of the hot puffs (or cut a very small slit into sides of each puff). Return puffs to turned off oven with door slightly ajar. Let puffs sit in oven for up to one hour to dry out.
- Fill with desired filling.
Carol says
Ok i used the five eggs (have made many profiteroles before husband’s diagnosis of celiac) but the dough was too tight so I warmed some milk and added that a little at a time, probably 1/4 cup each time, until I almost got the “V” and called it a day. Baked as suggested and they puffed and browned in less time that stated, but they taste good and will be filled with ice cream and frozen and then dipped in chocolate and no one will know they are gluten free. My husband thanks you, this gluten free baking is crazy.
carol says
Also, still me from above, the third batch came out the best, so maybe leaving the batter to rest a while is the best thing to do. My instinct is to get batter in the oven as quickly as possible but gluten seems to be a little different. Try it!
Kim says
Yes, please read step #7 in the instructions. I always rest the batter.
Veronica says
Mine didn’t puff 🙁 They also cooked faster, but I could smell them before they burnt up. I will say they tasted great. Both the (flat) puff and the pastry crème were delicious, and we made sandwiches out of them. I was sad they didn’t puff up. I see you suggested in the comments to use less eggs. I might have used extra large eggs which caused the issue. So, if you’re reading this, don’t do that!
Marcella Holtz says
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 says
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 says
Any info for high altitude, mine would come out flat-just flat-6300ft above sea level
Vee says
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 says
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 says
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 says
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 says
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 says
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 says
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 says
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 says
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 says
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 says
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 says
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 says
These look amazing!
Kim says
Thanks!!!