Buttery choux pastry topped with a sweet, crunchy cookie crust and filled with a melt-in-your-mouth light, creamy and airy salted caramel filling – Choux au Craquelin with Salted Caramel Cream is as delicious and fancy as it sounds!
Airy, creamy and crisp Choux au Craquelin with Salted Caramel Cream.
Now that I’ve shared with you how to make choux pastry for perfect profiteroles as well as perfect classic eclairs, let’s take it up another notch!
Craquelin topped Salted Caramel Choux Pastry (or Choux au Craquelin with Salted Caramel Filling) is as delicious and fancy as it sounds! It’s only a little step up from classic profiteroles. But my goal with my series of detailed choux pastry, profiteroles and classic eclair posts is to help you perfect these impressive and decadent desserts as well! 🙂
If you’re brand new to choux pastry, then I’d suggest the following in terms of experience level. This is just a suggestion however, and these are all really easy to make once you get the hang of it. I’m hoping my foolproof recipes will help you master each of these with ease!
All levels – Basic guide for making choux pastry + troubleshooting tips.
For beginners – How to make perfect profiteroles.
Intermediate – How to make perfect classic eclairs.
Advanced – How to make choux au craquelin (this post).
The first time I made choux au craquelin was several years ago. I ate them a few years before, and found them to be so thoroughly addictive, so, I wanted to make my own. That lovely, crackly top takes these cream puffs to a whole new level. And to make these delicious, crunchy choux buns even more luxurious, I filled them with a light and creamy salted caramel filling!
What is choux au craquelin?
Choux au craquelin is a dessert made with choux pastry, and topped with a thin cookie disc called craquelin. The craquelin is made with a mix of butter, sugar and flour – just like pie or shortcrust pastry. In contrast to regular choux pastry buns, craquelin adds a layer of sweetness and makes the cream puff delightfully crunchy.
As the choux pastry bakes and expands, the cookie disc (craquelin) bakes and forms a sweet, crisp, crackly crust on top, enveloping the top of the cream puff.
Can I use different craquelin variations?
While classic craquelin is made with butter, sugar and flour, there are plenty of different variations that you can experiment with. For this choux au craquelin with salted caramel recipe, I used brown sugar for its molassy flavor, and also because the light brown color stands out more on the choux pastry shell. You can use plain white sugar, if you don’t have brown sugar if you want.
Plus, the craquelin helps keep the cream puff crisp for longer, even when it’s filled with a filling.
How do you make the craquelin?
It’s super simple to make the craquelin. The craquelin is like a delicious, crispy cookie on top of the choux pastry buns, and a fantastic way to decorate the cream puffs.
The dough for this craquelin only has 3 ingredients. First of all, mix the ingredients to form a dough. Secondly, just roll out the dough till it’s nice and thin. Here’s my secret trick to rolling out the dough – I use a ziploc bag and roll out the dough inside it. Less messy, and keeps the dough from sticking everywhere. Plus, it’s easy to store it in the freezer for later too.
If you don’t have ziploc bags, you can roll them out in between two parchment papers to avoid the craquelin from sticking to your rolling pin.
Once the dough frozen, you’re finally ready for the final step. Smaller pastry discs need to be cut out from the frozen dough. Because the dough is frozen, it’s easier to cut out discs from it to top the choux pastry. You can store the craquelin cookie discs in the freezer for later use.
Choux pastry basics
Please read my detailed perfect choux pastry post to understand the basics of choux pastry, as well as to troubleshoot any pitfalls.
For this craquelin choux recipe, you need to pipe out choux pastry that’s about 2 inches in diameter, to match the craquelin disc that’s also about 2 inches in diameter. And be extra mindful when you’re piping the choux, as the pastry bag and tip need to be held upright. This is because if you pipe it at an angle, the choux will rise at an angle as well. This will make the craquelin on top lopsided. Also, you don’t have to flatten the tip of your piped choux pastry, because you’ll be placing the craquelin on top instead (as shown below).
Two inch choux pastries will give you choux au craquelin that’s about 2.5 – 3 inches in diameter.
If you want smaller craquelin choux pastries, then pipe smaller pastry mounds (about 1.5 inches in diameter), and top them with 1.5 inch craquelin discs. These pastries will end up baking into cases that are between 2 – 2.5 inches in width.
Salted caramel diplomat cream filling
I find this salted caramel diplomat cream absolutely addictive!
First, I make a dry caramel and dissolve the caramelized sugar in a little liquid. Next, I mix this with more milk, eggs, cornstarch, vanilla and sea salt to make luscious, creamy salted caramel filling.
Once the pastry cream is completely cooled down, it’s mixed with stabilized chantilly cream. Stabilized chantilly cream is simply cream that’s whipped to soft peaks, with a little sugar, vanilla and gelatin.
The chantilly cream lightens the salted caramel pastry cream, and makes for an amazingly melt-in-your-mouth, light filling.
Chantilly cream
Can I fill these craquelin choux pastries with pastry cream instead?
While you can fill these craquelin choux pastries with salted caramel pastry cream, the pastries are quite large (about 2.5 inches in width). This means filling them all the way with pastry cream would make the cream puffs quite heavy.
This diplomat cream on the other hand is lightened with whipped cream, resulting in a light, fluffy salted caramel filling that is less sweet and has a better mouthfeel. And overall it works better in these pastries.
Why add gelatin to the chantilly cream?
The gelatin acts as a stabilizer for the whipped cream, and in turn acts as a stabilizer for the diplomat cream as well. The filling stays fluffy and creamy, and doesn’t weep or split into liquid. This is really important to keep the choux au craquelin nice and crisp.
Can I make this salted caramel choux pastry ahead of time?
You can make choux pastry cases ahead of time easily. However, keep them unfilled and freeze the unfilled cases in an air-tight container for later. Then allow the pastries to thaw to room temperature before using.
I do prefer to reheat thawed pastry cases slightly in the oven before filling them, to make them crisp again, because freezing can make the craquelin choux cases a little stale. This step is optional however.
You can make the salted caramel diplomat cream up to 4 days ahead of time, so long as you keep it in an air-tight container in the fridge (not freezer).
If you have leftover choux au craquelin with salted caramel cream, you can freeze them for a day or two as well. And when you’re ready to eat them again, just make sure to thaw them out at room temp. for about 30-60 minutes.
Buttery choux pastry topped with a sweet, crunchy, crackly topping and filled with a not too sweet, melt-in-your-mouth light, creamy, airy salted caramel filling. These craquelin choux pastries are absolutely addictive and look really impressive too!
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EQUIPMENT I USED FOR THIS RECIPE
Circle cutters for the cookie discs on top
Piping bags – 16 inch piping bags for the choux pastry dough
Large round pastry tip – to pipe the pastry cases. Wilton 1A is about 1/2 inch wide. OR you can get Ateco #Plain 809 which is a little larger than 1/2 inch.
Whisks – A good set of whisks is a must for all of your baking needs.
Hand mixer or Stand Mixer – I currently use KitchenAid
2 x Silpat baking mats (optional) – You can use parchment paper instead too.
2 x Half Sheet pans – Having two makes it easier to bake the craquelin choux pastry. While one is baking, the other tray can cool down and be ready to pipe dough on, and then bake as soon as the other tray is out.
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Craquelin Choux Pastry with Salted Caramel Cream
What You Need:
- See post for detailed list of equipment needed.
Ingredients:
Craquelin (makes enough for 1 ½ batches, so you can freeze the extra for later)
- 4 oz unsalted butter (1 stick)
- Pinch of kosher salt
- 4.5 oz light brown sugar about 2/3 cup
- 4.5 oz AP flour about 1 cup + 1 tbsp
Salted Caramel Diplomat Cream
Salted Caramel Pastry Cream
- 150 g white sugar ¾ cup
- ½ tsp kosher salt or sea salt
- ½ cup warm cream see notes
- 2 cups of milk
- 3 tbsp cornstarch cornflour
- 1 tbsp vanilla bean paste or extract
- 3 large egg yolks
- 1 large egg please see recipe notes
- 3 tbsp unsalted butter softened
Stabilized Chantilly Cream
- 1 tsp gelatin powder
- 2 tbsp water at room temperature
- 1 cup of whipping cream chilled
- ¼ cup confectioner’s sugar
- 1 ½ tsp vanilla extract
Choux Pastry
- 1 batch Choux pastry baking directions below.
Instructions:
Craquelin (makes enough for 1 ½ batches, so you can freeze the extra for later)
- Place the butter, salt and sugar in a bowl and cream the ingredients together until creamy and fluffy.
- Add the flour and mix until the mixture looks crumbly. Using your hands, bring the crumbly bits of dough together to form a dough.
- Split the dough into two equal sized portions, and place each portion inside a 12 x 12 inch ziploc bag. Roll out each piece inside the ziploc bag until it’s about 2 - 3 mm thick. Remove excess air in the ziploc bag and close it. Place both ziploc bags on a flat tray and keep them in the freezer overnight (OR until completely frozen).
Salted Caramel Diplomat Cream
Salted Caramel Pastry Cream (Custard)
- MAKING THE CARAMEL - Sprinkle the sugar over the surface of a stainless steel pan or non-stick pan. Make sure the sugar is sprinkled in a thin layer so that it's easier for it to caramelize, and also make sure there's no water in the pan and on utensils.
- Heat over medium heat, taking care not to introduce water into the sugar. Stir the sugar as it melts with a heat-proof spatula. The sugar will stick to the spatula, but because it’s non-stick, it'll come off easily too.
- Continue heating the sugar, while stirring frequently, until the sugar turns into caramel (a golden to amber color) (Please be careful NOT to touch the sugar or the pan as they will be very hot at this point!).
- When the color is amber, add the ½ cup of warm cream into the pan. PLEASE STAND BACK AS YOU ADD THE CREAM AT THIS STAGE, because the pan is extremely hot and you don't want splash back. Stir soon after adding the cream, to dissolve the sugar. This will take a few minutes.
- When the caramel has mostly dissolved in the cream, add the rest of the milk, salt, and vanilla into the pan. Heat the milk until it’s nearly boiling, while stirring, to dissolve the rest of the sugar. Now you have a caramel flavored milk base for the custard.
- While the caramel milk is heating (to dissolve all the caramel), in a separate bowl or small jug, add the eggs and cornstarch (cornflour), and whisk until you have a smooth mixture.
- Temper the egg mixture by adding a little of the hot caramel milk in a slow and steady stream, while whisking the eggs constantly. After adding enough caramel milk to warm up the mixture, pour the egg-milk mixture back into the pan with the rest of the caramel milk.
- Heat the egg-caramel milk mixture while whisking/stirring constantly, until the milk starts to thicken. Stir well to make sure the eggs don’t curdle and stick to the bottom of the pan as the custard heats and thickens. I like to switch between a whisk and a spatula to make sure the custard stays smooth while it’s thickening.
- Stir the custard until it comes to a boil (the first big bubble to breakthrough the surface from the custard). When the custard starts to boil, remove it from the heat. If there are clumps, pass the custard through a fine sieve to remove them.
- Add the butter to the hot custard and mix until the butter has incorporated into it. Pour the custard into a bowl, and immediately cover the surface with plastic wrap, making sure the plastic wrap is touching the whole surface of the custard.
- Allow the custard to cool down to room temperature, then store it in the fridge for a few hours until chilled, and it's ready to be mixed with the cream.
Stabilized Chantilly Cream
- Place the water in a small microwave-proof bowl and sprinkle the gelatin over the surface of the water. Allow the gelatin to bloom for about 10 minutes.
- After the gelatin has bloomed, microwave the gelatin for about 10 - 20 seconds to dissolve the gelatin.
- Place the chilled cream in a clean bowl and add the confectioner's sugar and vanilla extract. Start whisking the cream with a hand mixer at medium-high speed. Pour in the dissolved gelatin while whisking the cream to ensure the gelatin gets mixed in well. Continue whisking until the cream forms soft peaks. Keep in the fridge, covered, until ready to use.
Salted Caramel Diplomat Cream
- Place about 2 cups of the salted caramel pastry cream in a large bowl. Add the chantilly cream and fold it into the pastry cream.
- If you'd like more salted caramel flavor, then fold in the rest of the pastry cream as well. Keep covered in the fridge until you’re ready to fill the choux pastries. When you're ready to fill the cream puffs, transfer the diplomat cream into a pastry bag, that's attached with a small round tip.
Choux Pastry
- Preheat oven to 375°F. Line baking trays with parchment paper or silpat.
- Take out the craquelin discs and place them on a smooth cutting board. Using a two inch cookie cutter, cut out 2 inch circles from the craquelin (about 22- 24 circles). Keep them on a non-stick surface (parchment paper or silpat), and in the freezer until needed.
- Make 1 batch of choux pastry dough according to this recipe and place the dough in a pastry bag, which is attached with either a ½ inch round tip or ½ inch French star tip.
- Pipe choux pastry mounds on the silpat (about 2 inches in diameter). Keep the tip upright and pipe out smooth mounds (piping tip touching the dough surface while you pipe). Gently twist and remove the tip when you're done.
- Carefully place a disc of craquelin on top and gently press it into the choux to make sure it sticks and is stable. (I piped about 12 choux buns on one half sheet pan).
- Bake in preheated oven for 30 minutes. Do not open the door before the 30 minutes, to prevent the pastries from collapsing.
- After 30 minutes, open the oven door and partially pull out the baking tray. Quickly (but gently), prick each pastry with a sharp toothpick to release any steam inside the pastries. Return the tray back to the oven and bake for a further 5 - 10 minutes, until the pastries are a little darker in color.
- Remove the choux pastries from the oven and allow them to cool for a few minutes in a draft-free place.
Salted caramel craquelin choux pastry
- Using a round or star tip, cut out a hole in the bottom of each of the cooled choux pastry cases.
- Fill the choux pastries with the salted caramel diplomat cream. Optional step - lightly dust the choux au craquelin with confectioner's sugar. Serve immediately.
Video:
Tips & Tricks
Nutrition Information:
“This website provides approximate nutrition information for convenience and as a courtesy only. Nutrition data is gathered primarily from the USDA Food Composition Database, whenever available, or otherwise other online calculators.”
Holly says
Thank you so much for the detailed instructions on this marvelous dessert! I am very familiar with piping eclairs or cream puffs but had never ever heard of these fantastic buns. I made 44 of them today! (at my job, pastry baker for private fly fishing club). They came out PERFECT. I admire your filling suggestion but I went with a coffee flavored whipped cream, with a caramel sauce as plate garnish. And I appreciate very much, your whipping cream/gelatine proportion suggestion. And reading through all the questions and comments helps also. I hope to hear rave reviews when I go to work tomorrow! thank you!!
Graceann says
Recipe sounds delicious, but wondering how to achieve a stabilized Chantilly without using gelatin? Thanks!
Dini says
Hi Graceann
Gelatin is my favorite way to stabilize whipped cream as it offers the most stability without a flavor change .
My second favorite is to use 1 tbsp piping gel per 1 cup of heavy cream.
There are other options, like 1 – 2 tbsp cornstarch, 3 tbsp instant vanilla pudding, 4 oz softened cream cheese and 2 – 3 tbsp milk powder (all per 1 cup of heavy cream). However, I find that it doesn’t work as well as gelatin.
I hope that helps
Janie says
My son requested cream puffs for his birthday and I stumbled upon this recipe. I had never heard of craquelin but decided to give it a try. Wow. What a showstopper! This will go on my list of special desserts for my favorite people.
Bruna says
Hi, just a question about your final note on milk vs cream. Do you mean to replace completely the 2 cups of milk with cream, for a total of 2 1/2 cream for the salted caramel custard?
Dini says
Hi Bruna
The note was about the 1/2 cup of cream that is used to make the caramel base. It used to be milk, but I changed that to cream. The 2 cups of milk to make the custard remains the same.
Hope that helps.
Bruna says
Ah, ok, so the recipe is just fine as it is. I’ll let you know what I can make of it. I adore craquelin.
Elizabeth says
Is the Salted Caramel Pastry Cream (Custard) supposed to be sweet? For some reason mine tastes a little bitter. I haven’t finished the second part yet but I just wanted to know before I added everything and possibly ruin it all.
Dini says
Hi Elizabeth,
There is a slight bitterness, but not much. If it is very bitter, that means the sugar was burnt too much.
Depending on how bitter it is, you may need to start again and not let the sugar caramelize as much. The sugar will burn very quickly once it starts to caramelize, so you have to be very careful. OR if it’s not too bitter, then you can add extra confectioners sugar to the stabilized chantilly cream and balance out the bitterness and sweetness.
Hope that helps
Dragana says
Hi. In Salted caramel pastry cream, what is ingredient “cream”?
I live in Europe, so here some things might have different name, can you help me with this one?
Dini says
Hi Dragana
I use heavy cream, which is 35% fat.
Hope that helps
Anne H says
My craquelin top is not crispy. Should I bake them longer or at a higher temp? Or is there something in the choux that is making it un-crispy?
Nadine says
i tried making the stabilized chantilly cream last weekend however, it didnt form peaks after adding the gelatine. i ended up with butter, twice! what can i do to fix this issue? could it be that i handled the gelatine wrongly?
Dini says
Hi Nadine
Was the cream very cold before you began whipping it? If it’s not very cold/ chilled – it won’t whip properly. Also, what is the fat content of the cream?
Also if you’re getting butter, that means that the whipped cream is passing he stage of soft peaks and becoming stiff peaks and turning into butter.
Once the gelatin is mixed it, the mixer speed should be lowered so that you can keep an eye on the consistency of the cream.
Aireen says
After craquelin be frozen for 3 months, do we need to make it room temp before applying on the choux
Dini says
Hi Aireen
The craquelin is used while frozen anyway, so it can be used straight from the freezer.
Hope that helps!