Peanut Butter Oreo Cream Puffs

These cream puffs are life changing. I would say that I was partial to this recipe because well, it’s mine, and peanut butter and Oreos are two of my favorite things. But Jared brought these into work one day and his colleagues said that they were just as good as I thought they were. So now we have a consensus – these cream puffs are GOOD.

You can make these cream puffs using my Perfect Choux Pastry recipe. In this post, I will include the recipe for the filling and the topping. But definitely head over to this post for helpful tips on making perfect choux pastry every time.

For this filling, you will have to master making a pastry cream. Pastry cream is easy to pull together as long as you have all of your ingredients prepared beforehand, and you are careful with your heat. In this post, I will walk you through the basics of making the perfect pastry cream. And then you can use the recipe at the bottom to turn that pastry cream into the cream puffs of your dreams.

When making pastry cream, it’s important to have all of your ingredients prepped beforehand. It’s always important to take care of your mise en place (essentially meaning “putting everything in its place”) but that’s especially true for pastry cream. You want to make sure that you can focus on that cream closely because if you turn away, you can run the risk of boiling your milk or making some funky scrambled eggs.

The first few steps (whisking your eggs with cornstarch, simmering milk) are easy. Tempering the eggs and adding them to the milk is where things start to get a little tricky. Tempering your eggs is when you add some of the hot milk to your egg mixture and whisk it together. This slowly heats the eggs, which keeps them from scrambling when you add them to your hot milk. When you do add them to the milk, make sure you run the eggs through a fine mesh sieve first. This will help prevent making clumps later. As soon as you pass the tempered eggs through the sieve, you will want to start whisking the cream to thicken it.

Once the cream is boiling and thickened, you will want to pass it through the sieve again to make sure that it is perfectly smooth. Using a spatula can be really helpful in getting the thick cream through the sieve. Once your cream is strained, you can add in the butter and your flavorings – in this case, vanilla extract and peanut butter. The cream will be thick and glossy when complete. Then you can refrigerate it to cool it down and thicken some more. Once the cream is cooled, you are ready to make your cream puffs!

Now use the recipe below to make these cream puffs yourself!! You are now the high priestess of cream puffs!

Print Recipe

Peanut Butter Oreo Cream Puffs

Cream puffs can be scary to make, but in my Perfect Choux Pastry post you learned how to make the shells perfectly every time! This recipe will elevate those puffs to places you have never seen before. If you love peanut butter and Oreos (and who doesn't?) then this is the recipe for you.

Servings: 30 filled puffs

Ingredients

• 10 oz Oreo cookies approximately 25 cookies
• 2 cups half & half
• 1 cup 2% milk
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/4 cup cornstarch
• 1 tbsp flour
• 4 large egg yolks
• 2 tbsp butter
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2-3/4 cup smooth peanut butter depending on taste (use the no-stir kind! I like to use Smooth Operator by Peanut Butter Co)

Instructions

• In a measuring cup, combine the half & half and milk. Pour 1/2 cup of that mixture into a separate bowl. 
• In the bowl with 1/2 cup of milk, whisk together the cornstarch, flour, and egg yolks. Set aside. 
• In a medium saucepan, stir the remaining milk mixture, sugar and salt together. Bring to a simmer over medium heat, stirring frequently. Make sure the milk does not boil. 
• Once all of the sugar is dissolved, whisk some of the hot milk mixture into the eggs to temper them. This will keep the yolks from scrambling when they are added to the hot saucepan. 
• Straining through a fine mesh sieve, pour the eggs into the simmering milk. Straining the mixture now will help prevent a lumpy pastry cream later. 
• Bring to a boil, while whisking vigorously to thicken the cream. 
• Remove from the heat and use a spatula to strain again through a fine mesh sieve. 
• Stir in the butter, vanilla, and peanut butter. 
• Cover the pastry cream tightly with plastic wrap to prevent a skin from forming. Allow the pastry cream to cool in the refrigerator. It will thicken as it cools. 
• While the pastry cream is cooling, get two small bowls and separate the Oreo cookie from it's cream center. Put the cookies in one bowl and the cream centers in another. 
• Transfer the cookies to a food processor and grind until they are fine crumbs. Reserve 1/4 cup of this mixture and put that on a plate. You will use this for the cream puff topping. Save the remaining cookie crumbs to add to the pastry cream. 
• Once the pastry cream is cooled, remove from the refrigerator. 
• Using a spatula, mix in the cookie crumbs to the pastry cream. 
• Transfer the prepared cream into a piping bag and pipe the cream into the puffs. You can tell when a puff has enough cream by its weight. Full puffs will be heavy. 
• Once the puffs are filled, microwave the cream centers for about 2 minutes, until they are smooth and sauce-like. 
• Dip each cream puff into the melted cream and then immediately roll the top in the reserved Oreo cookie crumbs. 
• Allow the topping to cool and serve immediately!