This delicious Boston Cream Puff Pastry is made of baked puff pastry filled with vanilla pastry cream, topped with a delicious chocolate glaze.
Course Dessert
Cuisine American
Keyword pastry
Prep Time 30 minutesminutes
Cook Time 15 minutesminutes
Total Time 45 minutesminutes
Servings 6pastries
Calories 320kcal
Author Camila Hurst
Ingredients
Vanilla Pastry Cream
1 1/4cupwhole milk283 grams
1vanilla bean split and seededor 1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2cupgranulated sugar100 grams
2tbspcornstarch
4large egg yolks
Pastry
1sheet of prepared puff pastrythawed
1egg
Chocolate Glaze
1/4cupheavy cream(60 ml)
1tbsplight corn syrupor honey
85gramschopped chocolate(1/2 cup)
Instructions
Vanilla Pastry Cream
It’s best to start by making the pastry cream, because it will take a couple hours in the fridge to become thick.
Split the vanilla beans in half and remove the seeds. Place the seeds and milk in a saucepan over medium heat. Once you see the first bubbles emerging, turn the heat off.
Whisk egg yolks, sugar, and cornstarch in a bowl, until pale in color.
Pour a bit of milk over the yolks while whisking. Do this slowly so you don’t cook the eggs. This process is called tempering the eggs, and you are supposed to add the milk slowly in order to not cook the eggs.
Add another little bit and whisk. Do this until the milk has all been incorporated.
Place the mixture back in the pan, over medium heat, stirring without stopping.
Cook the custard for a few minutes until it becomes thick.
When the custard starts thickening up, the mixture will look scrambled or lumpy. Just continue to stir and cook and it will come together and become smooth.
When the custard is thick like pudding, remove from the heat.
Place the custard in a bowl. If you didn’t add vanilla bean seeds, now it’s the time to add the vanilla extract to it. Stir to combine.
Place plastic wrap directly on the surface of the custard so it won’t form a skin as it cools down.
Keep it refrigerated until ready to use, and I recommend refrigerating it for at least a couple of hours before using it.
Prepare the puff pastry
Pre-heat the oven to 425 Fahrenheit.
Make sure the puff pastry is thawed.
Cut the pastry sheet in rectangles, my rectangles measured about 3.25”x5.25”. Essentially you could make this any shape you’d like. You could use round cutters to cut out circles, or cut squares of pastry.
Place the rectangles on top of a baking sheet lined with silicone mat or parchment paper.
Whisk the egg very well. Brush on top of the dough to cover its surface entirely, but don’t make it drenched.
Bake in the pre-heated oven for about 15 minutes, until puffed up and golden.
Remove from the oven and let it cool down, which should take about 10 or 15 minutes.
While the pastries cool down make the chocolate glaze.
Chocolate Glaze
Mix the heavy cream with the corn syrup. Theoretically you don’t need the corn syrup, it’s only there to make the glaze shiny. Honey also works.
Heat the heavy cream and corn syrup in the microwave or in a small saucepan until it becomes super hot.
Pour it over the chopped chocolate. Let it sit for just a minute.
Stir with a spatula until the chocolate melts entirely.
Let the glaze cool down for about 10 minutes or so, until no longer hot.
Assemble
Slice the pastries in half like a sandwich.
Place the pastry cream in a piping bag and pipe on the bottom half of the pastry.
Top with the other half.
Drizzle some of the chocolate glaze on top of the pastry. I found it easier and neater to put the chocolate glaze in a piping bag and snip the end with scissors and drizzle the glaze that way. I tried doing it with a spoon but it was a bit messy.
Storage
You can eat the pastry immediately. But the pastry will stay fine in the fridge for a couple of days. We kept some in the fridge and they stayed fresh and crispy still even the next day.
Notes
Thaw puff pastry: Thawing puff pastry can be very easy. I often forget to get it out of the freezer to thaw it. It only takes about 40 minutes sitting on the counter to thaw, but if you are pressed for time, remove the puff pastry from the package, wrap it around paper towel, and place it in the microwave for 15 seconds. Turn the pastry over and microwave for another 15 seconds. The pastry should be cold still, but unfolding easily.Egg wash alternative: you can mix the egg for the egg wash with a splash of milk, you can use just a yolk mixed with milk, you can even use just the white whisked by itself or milk.Vanilla bean: you don't have to use vanilla bean seeds from a vanilla pod. You can easily make this recipe using vanilla extract. To do so, simply skip adding the vanilla bean seeds to the milk when you are heating it up, and add the vanilla extract on step 10 of the pastry cream instructions.