Lemon Cream Puffs

 Today I show you how to make Lemon Cream Puffs with fresh fruit! These are a perfect light dessert to accompany a heavy meal- or for dessert when you don’t want cake!

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These lemon cream puffs are a little out of the ordinary for me, but I wanted to give you something that you could make that was a) easier than making a cake, and b) lighter than a cake.  If you’re a pastry chef, you can whip up some homemade puff pastry, but since I don’t know how to do that (yet) I cheated and went with the store bought kind. 

For the lemon mixture, you can use pie filling, or homemade lemon curd, which I must make a tutorial for!  Homemade is filled with real lemon juice and real lemon zest, and it is so wonderful.  If you’re a lemon lover, you probably already know how to make lemon curd.  But if you don’t I really need to help you learn how.

The addition of fresh fruit is a delicious accompaniment to the lemon and pastry combination.  Use whichever fruit you can find in season, but I love the berries the best- especially the raspberries!

Lemon Cream Puffs

Makes 8-10 cream puffs  

Ingredients:

• prepared puff pastry (can be found in frozen food section of grocery store)
• ¼ cup lemon pie filling or lemon curd
• 1 cup whipping cream
• Fresh fruit (blueberries, blackberries, strawberries, cherries, kiwis etc)

 Procedure:

1. Preheat oven to 400F.
2. Roll puff pastry dough out thinly on a floured surface, and cut into 2”-3” rounds.
3. Place on parchment lined baking tray, and bake for 15-20 minutes, or until golden brown.  Let cool completely on wire rack.  
4. In the bowl of a stand mixer, fitted with the whisk attachment, whip whipping cream on high until soft peaks form.  Add lemon filling and continue to whisk until stiff peaks develop.  
5. Place lemon cream into a piping bag fitted with a large tip.  
6. Separate puff pastry rounds into two pieces, and pipe lemon cream filling onto the bottom half.  Top bottom half with fresh fruit.  Place top half back on, using an additional dollop of cream to secure.  
7. Lightly dust with icing sugar and top with additional fresh fruit.  Serve and enjoy.  
8. These are best consumed immediately, but can be frozen, without the fruit, in a sealed container for 1-2 months.