SweetloreEncyclopedia of World Sweets (534）
Cream Puff
Choux cream
Filling the hollow created by baking with cream
Cakes ／ France
A cream puff is a pastry in which cream is filled into the hollow of a dough puffed up by the force of steam. The dough is worked in a pan, eggs are mixed in, and it is heated once more in the oven. The shell made through this two-stage heating is cooled and then finished with a separately made cream. The French word chou means “cabbage.” The round shell is baked until firm enough to keep the hollow inside, so that it can hold a soft milk-based cream.
Cooking the flour in a pan and adding moisture back with eggs
Choux dough (pâte à choux) is made by bringing water or milk, butter, salt, and other ingredients to a boil, adding the flour all at once, working the mixture in the pan, and then incorporating eggs. The first heating lets the starch absorb water, producing a sticky dough. It is important to bring the liquid fully to a boil; if the temperature is too low, this gelatinization does not progress easily.
After the excess moisture in the dough has been driven off in the pan, the dough is cooled slightly and the eggs are added little by little. When baked, the eggs set and help the shell keep its shape; at the mixing stage, they add moisture to the dough to give it a consistency that can be piped. How much moisture is lost in the pan changes the amount of egg needed. The final amount of egg is adjusted by watching signs such as the dough lifted with a spatula falling in a smooth V shape.
Adding cold eggs all at once firms up the butter and also changes the consistency of the dough. Bringing the dough and eggs to similar temperatures and piping the dough while it is still warm helps keep the shapes uniform. Some formulas use only water and others combine water and milk; the milk solids change the browning and aroma.
Puffing with steam and drying the walls around the hollow
In the oven, the water in the dough turns to steam and pushes the still-stretchable dough outward from inside. Eventually the structure formed by the eggs and flour sets, becoming a thin wall around the hollow. If the choux are taken out as soon as they puff, moisture remains in the walls, and they cannot support their own weight and tend to collapse.
Baking includes a stage for puffing up the shape and a stage for baking the walls firm and drying them. In commercial ovens, one method is to open the vent to release moisture; for home baking, another method is to bake through to the end without opening the oven door. Opening the door early and managing an oven’s vent are not the same operation. A large round choux and a long, slender éclair take heat differently, so the baking method is chosen to suit the size and the oven.
A thin cookie dough layered on the outside
In one style, a dough made by mixing butter, sugar, and flour and rolling it out into thin rounds is placed on top of round choux and baked. This layer, called craquelin, spreads over the rising dough and creates a finely cracked surface and a crisp bite. The rounds are handled chilled or frozen and placed one by one on the piped choux.
What is called a cookie choux in Japan also combines the inner choux dough, which forms the hollow, with a dough of a different formula that covers the surface. Whether the fragrant outer layer is made thick or finished thin and light changes the impression when it is bitten together with the cream.
Cooling the shell and adding a separately made cream
Custard is a cream thickened by heating eggs and starch. It sets differently from whipped cream, and some styles combine the two. Another method is to fill the choux with ganache montée, made by emulsifying chocolate and cream, chilling the mixture, and then whipping it.
The shell is cooled after baking and then filled with cream. In some styles the top is cut off and put back like a lid; in others, a hole is made in the bottom or elsewhere and the cream is injected with a piping bag. When a moist filling is added, moisture moves into the shell over time, and the shell’s texture softens. Keeping the step of drying the shell separate from the step of chilling the cream and filling the shell is the basis for combining different textures.
Legends of invention at court and the development of choux dough
There is a story that Panterelli, an Italian who came to France in the service of Catherine de’ Medici, invented choux dough and that his successor, Popelini, improved it. However, this is a legend about its invention, and it is uncertain whether a hollow shell and milk-based cream like today’s existed together in the 16th century.
In 18th-century France, there were recipes for a dough worked in a pan and for small choux filled with jam. In later histories of confectionery, the 19th-century names of Jean Avice and Antonin Carême are also linked to improvements in the dough. The method of puffing the shell was improved, and fillings appear in a variety of styles, including jam and milk-based cream.
In France, Popelini, a specialty shop selling small choux filled with a variety of creams, has expanded since 2011, using a traditional dough and marketing the choux as bite-sized pastries. In Japan, Tokyo Fugetsudo’s company history records the launch of a newly made product in 1884.
Boxed products shared by families, and choux ice cream
Before cream puffs became a familiar boxed sweet in Japan, there were also innovations suited to sales methods and the seasons. Hirota, founded in Osaka in 1924, made cream puffs its mainstay and created a box of four, focusing on four-person families. Facing a drop in sales in summer, the company reportedly launched a product with ice cream filled into the shell in 1964, moving from initial summer-only sales to year-round sales by the mid-1980s. Introduced in the Meiji era, cream puffs became boxed products shared by families and choux ice cream enjoyed in summer, and spread to dining tables across Japan.
Profiteroles and other pastries made from the same dough
A dessert of small choux filled with ice cream and topped with warm chocolate sauce is a classic style of profiterole. It differs from the cream puff in that the contrast of temperatures and the sauce are also part of the experience. Many pastries come from the same choux dough, such as the long, slender éclair and the ring-shaped Paris-Brest.
Glossary
- Pâte à choux
- The French name for choux dough. A dough in which flour is cooked in a pan and eggs are added, after which the oven creates the hollow.
- Gelatinization
- The change in which starch swells with moisture and heat and becomes sticky. It is involved in the first cooking of choux dough in the pan.
- Craquelin
- A thin dough made mainly of butter, sugar, and flour, placed on top of choux and other pastries and baked.
- Ganache montée
- A cream made by emulsifying and chilling chocolate and cream, then whipping the mixture.
- Profiterole
- A dessert made with small choux. The combination of ice cream and warm chocolate sauce is typical.
- Paris-Brest
- A French pastry in which ring-shaped choux dough is filled with cream.
- Catherine de’ Medici
- An Italian-born queen who married into the French royal family in the 16th century. She appears in the legend of the invention of choux dough.
- Panterelli / Popelini
- Names that appear in the legend of choux dough as a cook who served Catherine and his successor.
- Jean Avice / Antonin Carême
- A pastry cook and a chef whose names remain in French confectionery from the late 18th to the 19th century. Later accounts link them to improvements in choux dough.
Parade'sOven-Baked Cream Puff / Choux à la crème
Made by Cafe & Sweets Parade Kyoto, a Western-style pastry shop in Fushimi-Momoyama, Kyoto, the “Oven-Baked Cream Puff” has an appealing crisp texture and brings out the rich flavor of purely domestic eggs.
A crisp cookie choux shell is generously filled with a rich cream made by combining whipped cream with custard cooked using “Sakura,” purely domestic chicken eggs. With the toasty aroma of the pastry and the cream filling your mouth, this classic cream puff is one you will want to come back to again and again once you have tried it.
Parade'sOven-Baked Caramel Cream Puff / Choux à la crème caramel
An “oven-baked cream puff” with an exquisite balance of sweetness and gentle bitterness, made by Cafe & Sweets Parade Kyoto, a pastry shop in Fushimi-Momoyama, Kyoto.
We generously fill a crisp cookie choux with a rich cream made by combining fresh whipped cream with custard cooked using “Sakura,” a purely domestic Japanese egg. The toasty aroma of the pastry and the cream spread through your mouth, making this a classic cream puff that you will want to have again and again once you have tried it.
We fill a crisp cookie choux with a luxurious, rich cream made by combining caramel cream and fresh whipped cream in a 1:1 ratio. The subtle bitterness of the caramel serves as an accent that brings out the sweetness, creating an exquisite harmony.
Parade's【Valentine 2026】Oven-Baked Chocolate Cream Puff／Chou à la Crème Chocolat
A fragrantly baked cookie choux generously filled with chocolate cream rich in cacao flavor, then topped with roasted almonds and chocolate. It melts lightly in the mouth and leaves a deep, lingering chocolate finish.
Please enjoy the excellent pairing of choux and chocolate cream, a different experience from our classic Oven-Baked Cream Puff and Caramel Cream Puff.
As a treat for yourself or for time spent with someone special, enjoy a moment a little more indulgent than usual♪
Customer Reviews of Parade
I'm a fan
of your galettes
and cream puffs.
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