Recipes- Karen's Homemade Cream Puffs

You can pick up frozen cream puffs from Costco but since making them are so easy, you might as well avoid all the preservatives and extras you don't need by whipping them up yourself.  Plus, you can do so much with them! If you don't want to use the fillings below, you can stuff with scrimp salad, ham salad or Mandarin oranges and tuna like we did for ourTuna Mandarin Croissants. Thanks to my Mom Karen for the recipes and photos!

Homemade Cream Puffs

Preheat over to 450

1 cup water

1/2 cup butter

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup flour

4 eggs

Boil water, butter, and  salt, until butter has melted add flour all at once and stir with a wooden spoon until a ball is formed and pulls away from sides of pan. Remove from heat and beat in one egg at a time, mixing well after each.

Drop by spoonfulls on a lightly greased cookie sheet (in this case, she used her Pampered  Chef Easy Accent Decorator with the large nozzle which worked great especially with the smaller puffs).

Bake 10 minutes in preheated oven, then reduce heat to 400 and bake 25 minutes more or until golden brown. Let Cool. Split and fill with whipped cream, instant pudding, and cool whip folded together or you make a custard sauce*. To make it extra pretty, drizzle chocolate or caramel sauce (see bottom photo). 

*Custard Sauce

1/2 cup sugar

5 tble spoon flour

a pinch salt

2 cups milk

2 egg yolks beaten

In a small saucepan, combine 1/2 cup sugar, 5 tblesp flour and a pinch of salt.  Stir in milk, a little at a time, until smooth. Bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring constantly. Boil 60 seconds then pour a small amoutn of hot liquid into the 2 egg yolks, and stir. Then return now heated egg yolks to saucepan and stir, over heat, until mixture starts to bubble again.  Remove from heat, add vanilla.  Cover and chill in refrigerator

My mom Karen made this particular dish as an Anniversary Gift to friends of hers. She made stuffed game hens (recipe coming soon), home-made croissants, and even whipped up the sweet place-mats to give to the couple. Awwwww.....I think it's MY anniversary soon {hint,hint}