Tuesdays with Dorie: Cream Puffs with Crackle and Cream from Baking with Dorie

This week’s Tuesdays with Dorie recipe comes from Baking with Dorie. I got my picks of the recipes this month because it’s my birthday so it’s ALL about choux today and in 2 weeks!

This week I chose to make the Cream Puffs with Crackle and Cream – basically a version of a cream puff/ profiterole that has become quite popular in Paris over the past few years. Little choux pastry buns topped with a “craquelin” topping (like a sweet shortcrust dough or, in this case, a brown sugar butter cookie dough) that melts and melds to the top of the puff as it bakes. We’ve actually made these before – the version from Baking with Dorie – back in 2019 and I forgot how much I love this version of cream puffs!

I made this a birthday baking project this time around and made 1/2 the recipe to make 4 rather large choux buns (think – small hamburger size). These days I use a cookie scoop to portion my choux pastry. Mostly I use smaller ones such as these (<<< affiliate link but I love my cookie scoops!) but this time I used a larger one, size 12, approx. 2.5 inches in diameter (<<<affiliate link again).

This produces what I thought were “ok, we can have 2 each of these as a treat” size, as shown here pre-baking…

I somehow forgot about the puff factor (duh!) because when they came out of the oven, I realised that actually these would be a 1 per person (or even a share!) size!

Yep, like the size of mini-hamburgers (think kids’ size). I LOVE them, they are pretty cute, right?

To fill these ones, I sliced them in half horizontally and piped the vanilla whipped cream into them, then re-topped them.

Here you can see the size of the bun on a small side plate:

And the inside?

SO GOOD!

In fact, Neil and I ended up sharing one of these on our first porch meal of the year (yay for nice weather on my birthday!). We gave two away (unfilled so friends could have a choice of filling) and we still have one left, 2 days later that is not deflated and will be re-crisped in the oven and filled with the leftover cream (and maybe some ice cream!).

For the smaller sized puffs, my secret to filling them is the special piping tip that helps you fill the cream puff COMPLETELY without cutting, as you see here:

What a nice birthday baking treat this was! Bonus? I get to do this all over again on Saturday as I teach a choux pastry class in Toronto!

Get the recipe for Cream Puffs with Crackle and Cream on p 217 of Baking with Dorie or here. Get Dorie’s tips for working with choux pastry here.

Buy Baking with Dorie and join us baking through the book!

Buy Baking with Dorie on Amazon (this link should bring you to the Amazon store geographically closest to you). For free worldwide shipping, buy it on Blackwell’s. To support your local Indie bookstore, purchase on Bookshop.org.

Then join us over on Tuesdays with Dorie and bake your way through the book!

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Please note: I am a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites. This post also contains affiliate links from Blackwell’s and Bookshop.org. This means that if you click over and purchase something, I will receive a very small percentage of the purchase price (at no extra cost to you). Thank you in advance!

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Disclosure: I was provided with a copy of “Baking with Dorie” for review purposes. I was not asked to write about the book, nor am I being compensated for doing so. All opinions are 100% my own.

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