15+ Cream Puff Fillings: Delicious Ideas for Every Occasion
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Cream puffs are a delightful treat, but choosing the right filling and method can be difficult.
Whether you’re a beginner or more experienced in the kitchen, this guide covers a variety of filling options and techniques to help you customize your puffs to perfection. From classic whipped cream to more complex pastry creams and fruit curds, there’s something here for every taste and skill level.
Dive in and find your favorite way to fill these little pastry shells!
Ways to Fill Cream Puffs
Before we dive into all filling options, let’s briefly touch upon ways you can fill cream puffs. This way, you’ll know what your options are before you get to piping.
Top Cut
Cutting off the top is simple and lets you load in a generous amount of filling. It’s also the best method if you want to use multiple fillings, like in my Black Forest cream puffs recipe.
While it might not be the most elegant technique, it’s effective and a great option for beginners.
Here’s how it looks when you cut off the top:
And here’s the final result:
Side or Top Pierce
Piercing and filling your puffs from the top or side is more discreet, though it still leaves a visible hole in the puff’s exterior. You can cover this up by adding frosting on top.
When using this method, choose a spot where the choux pastry is thinner and easier to pierce.
Here’s what it looks like:
And here’s the result:
Bottom Fill
This is the most elegant option, often seen in cookbooks from top pastry chefs and culinary institutes.
The process is straightforward: pierce the cream puff’s bottom with a paring knife or piping tip and then fill it from there. This technique hides the entry point, giving your puffs a clean, professional look.
However, there are a couple of downsides.
First, it takes a bit longer because you need to create a small hole in the bottom of each puff before filling it.
Second, it doesn’t work well if your filling isn’t stable enough and might leak out. If you’re using something thick but slightly runny, like lemon curd, you might want to opt for another method.
Here’s how to pipe from the bottom:
And here’s what the puffs look like after filling:
Cream Puff Filling Ideas
Whipped Cream
Whipped cream is probably the simplest filling you can use. It’s light, quick, and delicious.
If you plan to store the puffs in the fridge for more than a day, I recommend stabilizing the whipped cream with gelatin or instant pudding to prevent it from seeping and maintain quality for 3 to 4 days. Check out my guide on whipped cream for more details.
If you don’t feel like whipping cream, you can opt for whipped topping or aerosol whipped cream instead.
For more flavor options, try infusing your whipped cream with spices or other flavors. My Earl Grey cream puffs recipe, where I infuse heavy cream with tea, is a great example.
Instant Pudding
Instant pudding works great as a cream puff filling, and it comes in various flavors, making it easy to customize.
To thicken the pudding, use about a third less milk than the package directions suggest. This will give it a texture closer to traditional pastry cream.
Vanilla Pastry Cream
Vanilla pastry cream is the base for many other flavors. You can make it in about 20 minutes (using vanilla extract instead of beans), and it’s beginner-friendly.
Once you master this basic recipe, you can easily experiment with different flavors. If you’re new to pastry cream, start with this one. Check out my vanilla pastry cream recipe.
Chocolate Pastry Cream
Chocolate pastry cream is the next step after vanilla. You simply whisk chocolate into the vanilla version, skipping the butter.
It’s easy and adds a lovely chocolate flavor. Plus, you can easily customize it by using flavored chocolate instead of the regular option.
Check out my chocolate pastry cream recipe for details.
Coffee Pastry Cream
Coffee pastry cream is another simple twist on vanilla. Just add instant coffee, espresso powder, or brewed espresso for a delicious coffee flavor.
Find my recipe for coffee pastry cream, or try my coffee cream puffs.
Lemon Pastry Cream
For a sweet and tangy twist, try my lemon pastry cream recipe. The only difference from vanilla pastry cream is adding lemon juice at the end.
It’s not as common as chocolate or coffee, but it’s definitely worth a try.
Pistachio Pastry Cream
The difficulty of this one depends on whether you have pistachios or pistachio paste on hand. If you start with nuts, you’ll need to make the paste first, which adds some work. But once that’s done, the rest is easy.
I love pairing pistachios with white chocolate, which you can find in my pistachio pastry cream recipe.
Pumpkin Pastry Cream
Pumpkin pastry cream is simple twist on the plain vanilla version. You add canned pumpkin, some pumpkin spice, and perhaps replace white sugar with brown, and you’re good to go.
Want to give it a go? Here’s my pumpkin pastry cream recipe.
Strawberry Pastry Cream
Berry-based pastry creams are simple to make but noticeably more time-consuming than the ones above. Before you make the cream, you first need to make the fruit puree, which means cooking the fruits, pressing them through a sieve, and adding sugar and lemon juice to taste.
Compared to the vanilla version, that’s an extra 15 to 20 minutes.
Sounds interesting? Check out my strawberry pastry cream recipe or my raspberry cream puffs.
Raspberry Pastry Cream
The technique for making raspberry pastry cream is the same as the strawberry-flavored one.
The difference between the two is that pressing raspberries through a fine mesh sieve is a pain. It takes forever, and there are lots of leftover raspberry seeds that you’ll discard.
(As you can tell, it’s not my favorite pastry cream to make, but I sure love the flavor.)
Caramel Pastry Cream
This one is a bit different, as you must make caramel sauce before making the pastry cream. And if you didn’t know already, making caramel sauce is tricky until you get the hang of it. That means you’ll probably burn the sugar a couple of times before you get it right.
It’s a delicious but also a slightly more advanced option. If you’re up for the challenge, check out my caramel pastry cream recipe.
Diplomat Cream
Diplomat cream isn’t a single recipe but a technique that involves mixing pastry cream with whipped cream and stabilizing it with gelatin. Adding whipped cream makes the resulting cream much lighter, while gelatin keeps everything stable so it’s not seeping liquid after a couple of hours.
Cream puffs, especially those with streusel topping (also known as Choux au Craquelin) can take quite a lot of filling. And filling them with any regular pastry cream can make the puffs a bit too “heavy.” As in, you eat one, and you’re done heavy.
Adding that whipped cream fixes the issue by making the filling much lighter. And that’s why I use it in many of my recipes.
Read my diplomat cream guide to learn how to turn pastry cream into diplomat cream.
Mousseline Cream
Mousseline cream is the exact opposite of diplomat cream. Instead of making your pastry cream lighter, it makes it richer by adding butter. This makes the pastry cream keep its shape well after piping, similar to buttercream.
I don’t use mousseline cream in my cream puffs often, but it’s a great option if you need a sturdy filling that’s not buttercream.
Want to learn more about it? Here’s my guide to making mousseline cream.
Oreo Whipped Cream
If you’re looking for an Oreo-flavored filling that comes together in 10 minutes, this one is for you. A couple of minutes of chopping the Oreo cookies and a few minutes of whipping, and you’re ready to fill your puffs.
Here’s my recipe for Oreo whipped cream, and here are my Oreo cream puffs, in case you’re wondering what they might look like.
Tiramisu Filling
Love Tiramisu? There’s nothing stopping you from using the same mascarpone filling in your cream puffs.
Sounds delicious? Check out my recipe for Tiramisu cream puffs.
Fruit Curd + Whipped Cream
Fruit curds (say, lemon curd) make a killer combo with whipped cream. The curd provides flavor, while whipped cream adds lightness.
There are two ways of doing this.
One is to pour a curd layer at the bottom and fill the remaining space with whipped cream.
The other is to fold the whipped cream into the curd, making something you could call flavored whipped cream.
In either case, I suggest stabilizing your whipped cream so it doesn’t seep or get watery. Nobody likes a runny filling.
Check out my fruit curds 101 for a primer on these and a couple of recipes.
Fruit Curd + Cream Cheese
This option is slightly simpler than the one above because you don’t need extra stabilization. The cream cheese is naturally stable, so there’s no need for gelatin.
As for the method, it’s pretty straightforward. Warm the cream cheese to room temperature, whip it briefly to loosen it up, add the fruit curd, and continue whipping until incorporated. Then taste it, and add powdered sugar if it needs more sweetness or lemon juice if it lacks tartness. That’s it.
I recommend a ratio of 1 cup of fruit curd to 3 to 4 cups of cream cheese or mascarpone.
This filling option is on the heavier side, so don’t expect your eaters to eat more than one or two of these.
So there you have it, a bunch of options for your next batch of cream puffs.
What are your favorite cream puff fillings?