Gluten Free Chocolate Peanut Butter Cream Puffs Recipe
Updated Feb 15, 2021, Published Feb 23, 2017
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I love cream puffs! Before going gluten free, it was either cream puffs or eclairs that I would usually buy at the bakery. When I went gluten free, I thought they were something I would need to cross off my list of things I could eat. I thought making cream puffs was just too difficult to attempt. Fortunately, I was wrong. Cream puffs are not as difficult as I thought and I can enjoy them whenever I want. That makes me happy. Very, very happy. As does this Gluten Free Chocolate Peanut Butter Cream Puffs recipe.
The puff part of these cream puffs is a chocolate version of classic pate a choux with a couple minor adjustments. For a step-by-step detail of how to make pate a choux, go here.
Pate a choux is basically water, butter, flour, and eggs. I use my own gluten free flour blend but it works well with any good-quality gluten free flour blend or even just sweet rice flour, which is also called glutinous rice flour (I wouldn’t use a bean-based flour unless you want your dough to taste like beans). I use unsalted, organic butter and organic cage-free eggs (I like Nature’s Yoke). And I use filtered water. See, you don’t have a lot of ingredients in there, so you want them to be good ingredients. Also, to make the chocolate puffs, you need to add a good-quality, unsweetened cocoa powder and just a bit of sugar.
The cream part of these cream puffs is just heavy cream, peanut butter, and powdered sugar all whipped up together. I tried with both smooth and crunchy peanut butter – both were great but I really liked the textural quality of the crunchy.
I made big cream puffs but you can certainly make smaller, more bite-sized ones if you prefer.
I can’t tell you how delectable these babies are!
Gluten Free Chocolate Peanut Butter Cream Puffs Recipe
Ingredients
Chocolate Pate a Choux (aka the puff part):
- ¾ cup gluten free all-purpose flour
- 2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
- 2 tablespoons sugar
- 1 cup water
- ½ cup unsalted butter
- 1/8 teaspoon kosher or fine sea salt
- 4 large cage free eggs
Peanut Butter Cream:
- 1½ cups heavy cream
- ¼ cup peanut butter
- 3 tablespoons powdered sugar , plus more for dusting the finished cream puffs
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat.
- Combine the flour, cocoa powder, and sugar in a small bowl and whisk well.
- Combine the water, butter, and salt in a heavy medium saucepan over medium-high heat. Bring to a simmer and continue to cook until the butter is melted. Add the flour mixture all at once and stir with a wooden spoon until it forms a thick dough. Continue cooking and stirring for 1 more minute.
- Dump the dough into the bowl of an electric mixer, preferably fitted with a paddle attachment. Mix on low speed for 30 seconds to cool the dough slightly. Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing very well after each addition. After all the eggs have been incorporated, continue to beat, increasing the speed to medium-high, until the dough is smooth, thick, and shiny, about 2 or 3 minutes.
- Pipe the dough onto the prepared baking sheet into 6 (2-3 inch) mounds (or you can make smaller ones) or use an ice cream scoop to scoop out the batter, spacing about 1 inch apart. To pipe, you can scoop the mixture into a large food storage bag, snip about ½ inch off one of the corners, and squeeze the mixture out onto the baking sheet. Moisten your finger with water and press the peaks down so they don’t burn.
- Bake for 10 minutes, reduce the oven temperature to 350, and cook for another 30 minutes or so, depending on the size, or until the dough has risen and puffed and the puffs sound hollow when tapped on the bottom. Turn off the oven and leave the puffs in the oven for 20 minutes. Remove from the oven and pierce the side or bottom of each puff with a sharp knife to let the steam escape. Let cool on a wire rack. These can be made ahead by as much as a month and stored in the freezer, if wrapped airtight. Thaw at room temperature before filling.
- Make the cream filling by combining the cream, peanut butter, and powdered sugar in a mixing bowl fitted with the whisk attachment. Whip on high speed until stiff but not dry.
- Cut the puffs in half and fill with the peanut butter whipped cream. Dust the tops with powdered sugar and serve.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
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these are great recipes. do you anticipate bring able to give sugar/calorie info. my husband is diabetic. also I do not digest heavy cream well. is there a workable substitution?,
Hi Carole,
Unfortunately no. I don’t give nutritional info for the fact that there are so many substitution options that it leaves the window open for them to end up being incorrect.
Sorry! There are however websites that can help you to calculate those things. :)
xo,
Carol