Oma's Eclair or Cream Puff Recipe
and Alana's Cream Puff Cake

Yum

This easy cream puff recipe, aka Windbeutel, is among some of the most impressive quick dessert recipes you'll find. They are great filled with whipped cream, pudding, fruit, almost anything! If you want to make eclairs, pipe the dough into oblong shapes, about 3" long and 1" wide. They are shown below, glazed with chocolate and served with fresh fruit. OR, make a Cream Puff Cake, also shown below!

Or, make these cream puff swans (instructions below)... easy enough for your grandkids to help you assemble ... and so much fun making memories!

Oma's Eclair or Cream Puff Recipe

Ingredients:

• 1 cup water
• ½ cup butter
• pinch salt
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 4 eggs
• 2 cups whipping cream
• 2 packages Dr. Oetker Whip It to stabilize whipped cream
  

Instructions:

• Preheat oven to 400° F.
• In a medium-sized pot, bring water, butter, and salt to boil, until butter is melted.
• Remove from heat and add flour all at once, stirring until smooth and mixture comes away from the sides of the pan
• Return to heat and cook for 1 minute, stirring constantly.
• Cool slightly (just a few minutes). Using either a wooden spoon or a mixer, beat in eggs one at a time, mixing well after each one. 
• Drop by tablespoons onto a parchment-lined baking sheet, leaving space between puffs. 
• Bake 20 - 30 minutes or until golden and crisp. Do NOT open oven door during first half of baking or puffs will collapse.
• Immediately upon removing from oven, cut a small slit in side of puff to release steam.
• Prepare the filling by whipping the cream together with the Whip It until thick.
• Once cooled, either split puffs with a sharp knife and fill them with whipped cream or use a pastry bag to pipe the cream into the center of the puff through the side slit.
• Makes 20 - 25 puffs, depending on size. Check out the alternate fillings and toppings below.

Hints:

• Once you split the baked puffs, remove any 'doughy' parts from inside the puff, before filling with the cream.
• Below are the instructions for making swans.
• To make eclairs, just pipe the dough into oblong shapes, about 3 inches long and 1 inch wide.  Shown below, they are glazed with chocolate and served with fresh fruit.
• Don't have Whip It? Add 2Tbsp powdered sugar, instead.

Cream Puff Tips ...

• Once filled, the cream puffs should be served within a few hours. They will keep in the fridge, but the sooner they are eaten, the better. 
  

• As an alternative, add 1 package instant vanilla or chocolate pudding mix to 2 cups whipping cream and whip.
• Cocoa can be used or even instant coffee powder (about 1 tsp) shown below, right.
  

• For fruit lovers, add some fresh fruit, such as strawberries, blueberries, kiwis, almost anything!
• Dust the tops of the cream puffs with icing sugar by placing about 1 teaspoon icing sugar into a small sieve. Tap the sieve lightly to "snow" the sugar lightly on top of the puffs.

Chocolate Glaze

A chocolate glaze on top is delicious as well. For this, use about 3 tablespoons of cream, 2 oz. of semisweet or unsweetened chocolate, and 1 cup powdered sugar.

In a small pot, melt the chocolate slowly in the cream. Whisk in the powder sugar until smooth. Dip the tops of the filled cream puffs in the glaze. Let set on a wire rack until the glaze has set. That's what I did for these eclairs shown above left.

Serve with extra whipped cream if desired, and/or fresh fruit.

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Cream Puff Swans

To make the swan puffs, remove ¼ of the dough and use it to pipe the swans heads/necks. Do this by piping with a small tip the number "2". Make as many of these as you have puffs.

Bake the head/neck for about 10 minutes. Then bake the puffs.

When cooled, cut the top off. Cut that into 2 pieces to form the wings. Fill the puffs with whipped cream, insert the head/neck and place add the wings. Voila! Swan Cream Puffs!

Your Kids will LOVE to help!

Even though the results look amazing, the process of making the dough is so easy. And it's actually fun to cut the puffs apart, pull out the soft insides (tastes like pancakes), and then fill them.

Not many 11-year olds can tell their friends that they know how to make cream puffs or Pâte à Choux! 

Two years later ... Lydia makes these swans all by herself!

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Alana's Cream Puff Cake

Here's the cake my granddaughter, Alana, wanted for her 16th Birthday celebration. A huge cream puff!

I followed the recipe as above for the dough. I then piped it several times in an 8-inch circle onto parchment paper. It baked for just a few minutes longer than the cream puffs.

I filled it with whipped cream that I added Whip-it to. I needed 3 cups of whipping cream (with 3 packages of Whip-it) to fill this properly.

The chocolate glaze is made by pouring 1 cup of hot whipping cream into a bowl with 1 cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips. I let that stand about 5 minutes and then stirred it well. Let it cool slightly before pouring it over the cake.

Keep chilled until ready to serve. LECKER!

More Delectable German Desserts

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