Cream Puffs and Profiteroles

Profiteroles are one of the world's easiest and most impressive foods. Make your choux pastry ahead of time, pipe or scoop the pastry onto a lined sheet pan, then freeze.

You can transfer the frozen pucks of choux pastry dough (a.k.a. cream puff dough) into a zipper top bag and stash to bake later, making them not just impressive, but ridiculously convenient, too.

Profiteroles vs. cream puffs

Are you asking, “Wait. Aren't these just cream puffs?” The answer is yes… but a qualified yes.

Profiteroles are homemade cream puffs that have been split, filled, with ice cream, and topped with hot fudge or chocolate or caramel sauce. So basically we're talking about an ice cream-filled hot fudge cream puff.

I think we can all agree that's a pretty wonderful thing, right?

Making cream puffs

Cream Puffs are another of those marvelous children of pâte à choux or choux paste. I've already told you a little of my love for choux paste. This is far and away my favourite, though. So let's walk through HOW to make a cream puff.

To begin with, I'm going to strongly suggest you use a stand mixer. You can absolutely make the dough (choux pastry) for your cream puffs by hand, but be aware that it'll be an upper-body workout. It's much more easily done with a stand mixer fitted with a batter blade.

While you do need to form the cream puffs immediately after the dough is made, you can pop the pan into the freezer right after shaping or piping it if you don't want to bake them right away.

What do I use to fill cream puffs?

In short, anything you want. To expound a bit, they're delicious when split and filled with savoury or sweet goodies.

From chicken salad, egg salad, or tuna salad to ice cream and hot fudge, but not all at the same time, Cream Puffs are so easy to make and so impressive.

What are profiteroles?

Profiteroles are the happy result of splitting a largely hollow cream puff in half and filling it with ice cream. HOLLER!

You can use strawberry ice cream, Mint Dark Chocolate Chunk Ice Cream {30 Minute Recipe}, The Best Chocolate Dairy Free Ice Cream Recipe, or basically any ice cream that dings your chimes! They're amazing with ice cream from the store, too!

In this case, we then drizzle warm hot fudge sauce over the whole thing. Then we drizzle the hot fudge sauce directly into our mouths. I mean, really. This is Grandma Val's hot fudge sauce that I'm using. I'm no fool.

Can you freeze cream puffs?

Here comes another qualified yes. You can definitely freeze cream puffs, but the end result will be better if you freeze them BEFORE you bake them.

I know it probably sounds appealing to have a bag full of frozen cream puffs in the freezer just waiting to thaw and fill with ice cream or what-have-you, but I stick with me here. Homemade cream puffs taste even better when they're fresh. And this is so very easy!

Just whip up that homemade cream puff recipe, pipe it out into the shapes you want and freeze them. When you want profiteroles or cream puffs, just bake them from frozen. That's right!!

If you have your cream puff frozen, you can have ice cream-filled puffs any old time you want. You don't have to thaw the dough or anything prior to baking.

You just pop a frozen cream puff or several on a lined pan and bake. The only concession you have to make for baking them from frozen is that you add five minutes to the cooking time. That's doable, right?

That's TOTALLY doable. Make yourself or someone else some profiteroles. This is how you make people happy.

How to store cream puffs

Now that I've shared my very strong opinion on baking cream puffs fresh when you want to eat them, I'll go ahead and tell you that yes. You can store them once they're already baked. I'd advise wrapping them individually and freezing them in a zipper top bag if you can't eat them the same day they're made.

You can also bake them several hours ahead of when you plan to serve them. Let them cool completely… as in 100%… then transfer them loosely into a paper bag and roll the top down several times to close the bag.

Use these to make homemade cream puffs more easily!

1. Stand Mixer
2. Half Sheet Pan
3. Parchment Paper
4. 2 Quart Saucepan
5. Sturdy Spatula or Wooden Spoon

Need cream puff ice cream options?

You can try this amazing maple bacon frozen custard, 3-Ingredient Strawberry Ice Cream, Eggnog Ice Cream, Pumpkin Cheesecake Ice Cream, Blueberry Frozen Yogurt, Strawberry Cheesecake Frozen Yogurt, Cinnamon Frozen Custard,Mint Dark Chocolate Chunk Ice Cream, Vanilla Latte Stracciatella Gelato, Vanilla Homemade Ice Cream, Fresh Peach Ice Cream, or Berries and Cream Ice Cream.

Profiteroles

To Make the Cream Puffs:

Preheat the oven to 425°F. Line a large baking sheet (or two) with silpats or parchment paper.

Bring the water, butter and salt to a rapid boil in a heavy-bottomed, 2-quart capacity saucepan over high heat. Remove the pan from the burner and add all the flour at once.

Stir strongly until the flour is completely wet. Return the pan to medium-high heat and continue stirring strongly until a light film forms over the bottom of the pan and the dough is smooth and soft and forms a ball when stirred.

Remove the pan from the heat. Transfer the dough to the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle (or to a large, heat-proof mixing bowl if a stand mixer is unavailable.) Let the dough rest for 10 minutes.

After 10 minutes, add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. After the final egg is added, beat on high for at least 2 minutes, but not more than 4. (If beating by hand, you can count this as a large part of your daily workout. Beat it into submission!)

You must pipe or scoop out your cream puff dough immediately, but there are two options for after you portion them out. Either way, begin by using a pastry bag with a large plain tip or spoons to portion the dough into 16 equally sized rounds on the prepared pan(s).

I use a pastry bag to pipe circles, piping in smaller toward the top. Traditionally, you tap down the little peaks that form, but my kids like to bite those off, so I leave them.

Alternatively, you could use two large tablespoons to portion it out, using one spoon to scrape the dough from the other over the pan.

At this point you can put the pan directly into the freezer, transferring the cream puffs to a resealable zipper top bag or freezer-safe container with a tight-fitting lid for up to 3 months.

~or~

To Bake the Cream Puffs:

(If preparing from frozen, simply add 5 minutes to the baking time at the end.) Place pan in the oven, bake for 15 minutes.

Do not open that door! After 15 minutes, lower the heat to 375°F and cook for an additional 15 minutes.

When the time is up, turn off the oven and stick the handle of a wooden spoon in between the body of the stove and the door to hold it open just a little and let the cream puffs cool in the oven like that for 30 minutes.

After 30 minutes, remove the pan from the oven. You can serve them immediately or cool to room temperature.

To Make Profiteroles:

Break open a cream puff at the midline (much like a muffin). Place the bottom on a plate, put a good-sized scoop of ice cream on the base, add the top part of the cream puff and drizzle with warmed hot fudge sauce.