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Italian Cream Puffs with Custard Filling

These custard filled pastries are a tasty treat for any day! Homemade vanilla custard is made on the stove top and chilled while the pastry dough is prepared. To start the pastry dough dry ingredientsare sifted together and set aside. Then the dry ingredients are added to asaucepan with water and melted butter. Next eggs are mixed in, one at a time. The dough is piped into puffs on a baking sheet and baked until golden. Aftercooling the puffs are filled with the custard filling.

Course Dessert
Cuisine Italian
Prep Time 40 minutes
Cook Time 20 minutes
Servings 12

Ingredients

Pastry

  • 2 ¾ cups unbleached flour
  • ⅛ tsp salt
  • ½ tsp baking soda
  • 2 cups water
  • 9 ½ tbsp butter
  • 6 large eggs

Custard

  • 1 cup sugar
  • ½ cup flour
  • ¼ tsp salt
  • 3 cups whole milk
  • 4 egg yolks
  • 3 tbsp unsalted butter
  • 1 ½ tsp vanilla
  • 1 tbsp rum

Instructions

Pastry

  1. Preheat oven to 425 F. Line cookie sheet with parchment. Sift together flour, salt and baking soda. Set aside.
  2. In a heavy saucepan, heat water. Add the butter, when melted remove the pan from the stove and add the flour mixture all at once. Beat with a wooden spoon, then return the pan to medium-high heat, beating the mixture until it comes away from the sides of the pan. Remove pan from heat and add the eggs one at a time, beating with a wooden spoon or handheld mixer in between additions to mix well.
  3. Fill pastry bag fitted with ½ inch tip with cream puff batter. Squeeze out 3 inch puffs, about ½ inch apart on cookie sheet. Bake 20 minutes or until golden brown. When done, carefully slit the side of each cream puff with a knife to allow steam to escape and prevent the puffs from becoming soggy inside. Transfer to cooling racks and let cool.

Custard

  1. In a saucepan over moderate heat, combine sugar, flour and salt. Add milk gradually, cooking and stirring until mixture is thick and bubbly.
  2. Lower heat, stirring for 2 minutes and remove from heat. In a small bowl add a small amount of milk mixture to the eggs slowly to temper the eggs. Return the mixture to the pan. Bring to a gentle boil for 2 more minutes, adding butter, rum and vanilla. Transfer to a shallow bowl to cool, placing plastic wrap on top of custard to prevent a skin from forming. Refrigerate.
  3. Once custard has cooled completely, pipe into opened pastry shells until they are full, top with a cherry and dust with powdered sugar.

Recipe Notes

To substitute 1 cup whole milk, melt 2 tsp butter let it cool slightly then add in 1 cup skim milk. Whisk to combine.

I make the custard first and refrigerate overnight or while making the pastry. You can pipe in the custard through the slit or slice in half and fill like a sandwich.