Cream Puff Dessert is light, delicious, and feeds a crowd!
Creamy filling with a perfect puff pastry shell crust and a drizzle of chocolate sauce…what’s not to like? This Eclair Cream Puff Dessert is one of those awesome desserts that looks fancy but is simple to make and uses super normal ingredients that you probably have in your house right now. We love this dessert so much, I have turned it into an Easy Eclair Pie Recipe, too. My oldest son always requests a “Zebra Pie” for his birthday.
There is something about the delicious filling paired with the puffy pastry shell crust that just works and works WELL!
This recipe makes a big cookie sheet of dessert, so it’s perfect for when you have company over or a pot-luck to take a dessert to.
More Delicious Layered Desserts
- Pineapple Dream Dessert
- No-Bake Cherry Cheesecake
- Chocolate Lasagna with Shortbread Crust
- Magnolia Bakery Blueberry Jamboree
- Easiest, BEST Ice Cream Cake Ever
- Fresh Raspberry Lemon Tart Bars
I love, love this dessert. Because it’s so light and delicious, it’s tempting to eat the whole pan yourself. The last time I made this, I may or may not have hidden the leftovers in the downstairs fridge and eaten a generous serving every day at nap time. I feel really good about that. 🙂
Make it for a crowd. Make it for yourself. I don’t care who you make it for; just make it! You won’t regret it.
HOW TO MAKE ECLAIR CREAM PUFF DESSERT
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
- In a small saucepan, bring butter (or margarine) and water to a boil. Remove from heat and quickly whisk in the flour until it forms a smooth ball. Let stand for about five minutes.
- Next, beat in eggs one at a time using a whisk or transfer the dough ball to a mixer and add the eggs one at a time.
- Spread mixture evenly onto a greased 15x10x1 cookie sheet.
- Bake for 22-25 minutes or until the dough starts to turn golden brown. It will be bubbly looking. You can poke the largest bubbles down if you want.
- Let crust cool and then make the filling.
- For the filling, beat the cream cheese with a hand mixer in a medium-sized bowl. Very slowly add the milk to prevent little balls of cream cheese in the filling mixture.
- Once all the milk is mixed into the cream cheese, add the packages of instant pudding and mix well.
- Pour mixture onto the cooled crust and spread evenly.
- Next, spread the layer of cool whip evenly over the whole dessert.
- For the final touch, drizzle chocolate sauce back and forth across the length of the dessert. Then, take a butter knife and drag it back and forth to get the look in the posted pictures.
- Enjoy!
Tips for making Eclair Cream Puff Dessert
- Make sure to let the dough stand for about five minutes to cool down a little before adding the eggs. You don’t want the eggs to start cooking and turn into scrambled eggs.
- In a separate small bowl, add eggs and beat until combined. Then, add beaten eggs to the dough mixture slowly and a little at a time until mixed through.
- When making the filling, very slowly add the milk as you beat it. Adding just a little bit of milk at a time will help prevent forming little balls of cream cheese in the filling mixture.
- When adding the Cool Whip layer, put spoonfuls of the Cool Whip evenly spaced over the whole dessert and then carefully spread it. This step makes it a little easier to spread evenly.
Baker’s Tools for Cream Puff Dessert:
If you love Eclair Cream Puff Dessert, you'll love these...
- PUFF PASTRY
- ½ cup butter or margarine
- 1 cup water
- 1 cup flour
- 4 eggs
- FILLING
- 1 (8 oz) cream cheese, softened
- 2 (3 oz) packages instant vanilla pudding
- 3 cups cold milk
- 1 (8 oz) tub of Cool Whip
- Chocolate Syrup for drizzling
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
- In a small saucepan, bring butter (or margarine) and water to a boil. Remove from heat and quickly whisk in the flour until it forms a smooth ball. Let stand for about five minutes.
- Next, beat in eggs one at a time using a whisk or transfer the dough ball to a mixer and add the eggs one at a time.
- Spread mixture evenly onto a greased 15x10x1 cookie sheet.
- Bake for 22-25 minutes or until the dough starts to turn golden brown. It will be bubbly looking. You can poke the largest bubbles down if you want.
- Let crust cool and then make the filling.
- For the filling, beat the cream cheese with a hand mixer in a medium-sized bowl. Very slowly add the milk as you beat it to prevent little balls of cream cheese in the filling mixture.
- Once you have all the milk mixed into the cream cheese, add the packages of instant pudding and mix well.
- Pour mixture onto the cooled crust and spread evenly.
- Next, add the layer of Cool Whip by carefully spreading it over the whole dessert.
- For the final touch, drizzle chocolate sauce back and forth across the length of the dessert. Then, take a butter knife and drag it back and forth to get the look you see in the pictures above.
- Enjoy!
More Puff Pastry Desserts
Hi Maria. I’m so glad you have this page. I’ve been cooking for almost 40 yrs. Lol and I just love your recipes. So good to cook something new. Some are old recipes I forgot about and others are just brand new to me and I love them all. You should make a cookbook. If you ever do I want to buy one. Do you ever do instapot recipes? I just got one for mother’s day. And I’m scared to use it. Lol. Not sure if you can teach this old dog any new tricks. Love you. Amber
This looks amazing! Could I make it the day before or just the crust layer?
You can definitely make it the day before. I usually make it the night before I plan to serve it.
This is one of my favorite desserts to take to a party. I fell in love with it the first time you made it for me and I’ve never gone back.
That’s choux pastry, not puff pastry. But that (choux) is what you want for eclairs. Your recipe is a great substitution for making separate eclairs. This is a lot quicker and less messy! I like this idea. Thanks for posting it.
Thank you for clarifying, my mom always called it puffed pastry. I am glad you like this quick version. It is one of my favorite desserts.
‘M confused. I see puff pastry in the ingredients and do not see in the directions where you have used it.
The PUFF PASTRY in ingredients is just signifying that the ingredients listed below are to be used to make the Puff Pastry part….does that make sense?
Made this tonight for tomorrow’s Easter dessert. It looks delicious! I’m sure my family will love it!!
Thanks, Susan!
My pastry turned out hard as a rock, not sure what I did wrong I cooked it 22 mins
That is really strange. Does your oven cook hot? Was your oven on convection? What size were the eggs you used?
Ok,I think I figured out what may have happened I didn’t cook it until thickened after adding the flour so the amount of water was correct but I didn’t understand to thicken it first before adding eggs
Glad to hear you figured out what went wrong. This recipe is so good, I hope you give it another shot!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
So gonna make this!
I’ve made this before and it was a hit. Making it now and my filling is liquid like. I don’t remember this happening last time and not sure what I did wrong. 🥴
Hmm, does it just need a minute to set up? Did you accidentally add extra milk? I hope it came together for you.
Did you use full fat cream cheese? I used the fat free kind once and it messed up the consistency of my filling.
Does this get soggy from the creme?
No, it is so good, this is always a HUGE hit!
can i use purchased puff pastry instead of making from scratch?
Hi, Julio. We haven’t made it with store-bought puff pastry. But if you do, I recommend following the instructions on the package for thawing and baking because it will be different than in this recipe.Keep in mind, the texture of the pastry will be different than the homemade version. Let us know how it turns out if you make it with store-bought puff pastry.