Cream Puffs with Cinnamon Ice Cream and Salted Caramel Sauce
Decadent Cream Puffs with Cinnamon Ice Cream and Salted Caramel Sauce are both ridiculously easy and incredibly elegant.
This is another one of those recipes that sounds difficult and complicated but isn’t. I swear.
I started my fabled cooking career by taking care of the dessert component of Sunday dinner, which was always a hit with DOLD. Ice cream was a particular favorite of his, so any way I could incorporate it into dessert was a real winner.
A friend of mine and I found a “pate a choux” recipe and thought it sounded incredibly cool and elegant. We decided to make it despite the fact that it had only 4 ingredients and they were butter, flour, eggs and salt. And the common name for it was cream puffs.
The longest portion of this dessert (besides the wait on the ice cream) is the baking of the cream puffs. All in, prep time for this entire dessert is only about 30 minutes, 20 of which is active. Totally doable.
Fill Cream Puffs with ice cream!
Growing up, we used our favorite store bought ice cream in our Cream Puffs, and they were great. If you are going to make your own ice cream and completely wow the crowd though, make it early enough in the day that it will have time to firm up before dessert – give it at least 6 hours. You can make it a day (or two) before too.
Cinnamon Heath Crunch No Churn Ice Cream
Ingredients
- 1 can Sweetened Condensed Milk
- 2 cups Heavy cream
- pinch Salt
- 1 tsp Ground Cinnamon
- 1 8.5 ounce pkg Heath Bits O’ Brickle
Instructions
- In a large mixing bowl, whip cream until peaks form, being careful not to over whip (and make butter).
- Sprinkle cinnamon over top of whipped cream, and slowly drizzle in condensed milk while mixing on low, trying not to deflate mixture.
- Fold Bits O’ Brickle into whipped mixture, combining thoroughly. Freeze in covered container for at least 6 hours.
- Ice cream should be fairly easy to serve after freezing, but let sit out for 5 minutes to soften as necessary.
Pro-Tip: If you don’t feel the need to make your own Cinnamon Ice Cream, sprinkle cinnamon powder on top of slightly melted vanilla ice cream and stir. Voila!
Next up is the Cream Puff Recipe.
After you bring the butter and water to a boil (which will melt the butter), add the flour and allow it to cook thoroughly. This is probably the most important part of the recipe – if you don’t let the flour mixture cook until it forms a ball and pulls away from the sides of the pan, it can taste really floury. Not good.
Crack all the eggs into a small container. When the flour mixture is cooked, add all the eggs at one time and whisk vigorously. (Affiliate links follow – see disclaimer page for details.) Just when you think your arm is going to fall off, it should come together. You can use a hand mixer, but that’s not nearly as much fun.
You can use a pastry bag (which we never have) or put the mixture into a plastic storage bag and cut off a corner so you can squeeze it onto the baking sheet. You can also free hand it if you want, which I always used to do. The only problem was that I usually ended up with about 10 cream puffs, and they were huge. I guess that’s not the worst problem.
Bake them for anywhere from 25 minutes to 40 minutes, depending on the size. They should be golden brown and hollow sounding when they are done.
Cream Puffs
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup Butter (1 stick)
- 1 cup Water
- 1 cup Flour, all purpose, unbleached
- 1/2 tsp Salt
- 4 Eggs
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.
- Bring butter and water to a rolling boil in a medium saucepan.
- Add flour and stir, using a wooden spoon, for about three minutes to allow flour to lose uncooked taste. When flour forms a ball, remove from heat.
- Crack all eggs into bowl or measuring cup. Add eggs to flour mixture, all at one time, and whisk vigorously until completely incorporated. Mixture should no longer be shiny.
- Spoon onto baking sheet, each puff should be about the size of a large walnut; conversely, put mixture in pastry or plastic bag and pipe onto baking sheet in 12 small mounds about the size of golf balls. Leave at least 3″ between each pastry.
- Bake for 25 to 40 minutes until brown and hollow sounding when tapped lightly on the bottom. Cooking time will vary depending on size. Allow to cool before cutting.
Finally, make the Salted Caramel Sauce. You might want to make a double batch. It doesn’t last long.
Salted Caramel Sauce
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup Butter (1 stick)
- 3/4 cup Dark Brown Sugar, packed
- 1/4 cup Heavy Cream
- 1 tsp Dark Rum, or vanilla (in a pinch)
- 1/4 tsp Flaky salt (I used Himalyan)
- 1/4 tsp Cinnamon
Instructions
- Combine butter, brown sugar and cream in a heavy pot on the stove top, heating on medium to medium high heat. Stir mixture until melted and smooth.
- Bring to a boil, then turn down heat to a simmer, and allow to cook for about 3 minutes.
- Remove from heat and stir in rum, salt and pinch of cinnamon. Can be held at room temperature for several hours, or refrigerate in a covered container if keeping longer.
- Reheat in container in saucepan with water simmering over low heat, or in a microwave in 30 minute increments, stirring after each. Serve with an additional sprinkle of salt.
When it’s time to eat, cut the Cream Puffs in half, put a scoop of ice cream in the middle, top that with a healthy dollop of sauce, then put the lid on it, and add another splash of sauce.
7 thoughts on “Cream Puffs with Cinnamon Ice Cream and Salted Caramel Sauce”