Snowman Cream Puffs are a fun and festive winter dessert recipe! Choux pastry filled with vanilla pastry cream in a white chocolate ganache. A fun snow Christmas dessert.
Make your pastry cream if it is not done already. Refrigerate until ready to use.
2 cups Vanilla Pastry Cream
Preheat oven to 425°F.
Bring the butter, water, and salt to a boil in a small pot over high heat.
4 Tablespoons unsalted butter, ½ cup water, pinch salt
When boiling, turn the heat down to medium, add the flour, and stir continuously over the heat. Stir until the dough has all clumped together primarily in one ball and the dough has a slight sheen to it (like it is glistening or sweating).
½ cup flour
Move the dough into the bowl of a stand mixer and let sit 5-10 minutes to cool slightly.
On medium speed, add the eggs one at a time, fully incorporating each one before adding the next.
2 large eggs
Add the cinnamon and mix briefly to combine.
pinch ground cinnamon
Remove the dough and scoop into a piping bag. Pipe the dough onto parchment lined baking sheets to the size desired, leaving one inch between. Alternate between one large puff and one smaller puff. They will grow slightly.(I aim for puffs about 1 inch wide for the heads and around 1.5 inches wide for the bodies).
Dip your fingers in water and smooth out the puffs. Smoothing out any peaks will give you a rounder shape and I have found that also smoothing out ridges helps keep them rounder and less likely to grow in weird ways.
Bake the puffs in the oven for about 20-25 minutes, flipping the tray(s) around halfway through.If using two trays, flip which is on top and bottom as well.The puffs will have expanded and be a light golden brown.
Poke a hole in the bottom of each puff with a knife before cooling to help steam escape.
Let the puffs cool completely before filling. Either cut off the top or pipe the pastry cream in with a piping bag into the bottom holes.
While the puffs are cooling down, make the white chocolate ganache.
Make your white chocolate ganache (see recipe link)
1 batch White Chocolate Ganache
Assembly
Assemble by first pairing up one smaller puff with one larger puff. Use a piping bag filled with the pastry cream to fill each puff from the bottom hole that you poked for steam to escape. You know it is full when the cream starts coming out by the nozzle tip.
2 cups Vanilla Pastry Cream
Hold the filled puffs by the bottom flat edges and dunk into the ganache to coat most of the puff.
1 batch White Chocolate Ganache
Stack the small puff on top of the larger puff.
Push a pretzel stick into the sides of the bottom puff for the arms.If having difficulty, carefully stab the puff with a sharp knife to assist in making the hole. But do not make the hole too large so that it does not crumble.
16 pretzel sticks
Add the mini chocolate chips as eyes and buttons (if desired) to the top puff. Push the pointed end of the chip into the ganache for a flatter eye/button.
mini chocolate chips
When the ganache is partially set, push the end of an orange sprinkle into the head as the nose so it sticks out.If you do this too early, as the ganache continues to set, the sprinkle is likely to fall flat.
orange jimmie sprinkles
Repeat with the remaining puffs. Chill until ready to serve.Puffs are best when served the same day but can be made and filled up to three days in advance.
Notes
Want to make them in advance? It is best to have the puffs, cream, and ganache all made but not assembled. Then assemble when ready to serve (let the ganache set out for a bit to soften up). Puffs soften when filled in advance, and things start to droop (arms, nose, etc).