Cream puffs – also known as choux à la crème and profiteroles – are a French pastry traditionally filled with pastry cream, but sometimes filled with custard, whipped cream, or even ice cream. This dessert can be served plain, dusted with powdered sugar, or covered in some kind of chocolate or caramel sauce. Regardless of how you enjoy it, you’re going to want to make sure that you enjoy it on January 2nd. That’s because the day following New Year’s Day is known as National Cream Puff Day and is the perfect day for you to acquaint or reacquaint yourself with these sweet pastries.

The History of Cream Puffs

Okay, we admit the fact that we just couldn’t locate the origin of National Cream Puff Day, so instead, we had to turn our attention to tracing the history of cream puffs. And what we discovered during our journey was pretty remarkable, so we’re going to head to the Middle Ages to trace cream puffs’ earliest beginnings.

During the 13th century, cooks in southern Germany and France were making a variety of puff pastries with different cheese mixtures. They would take the pastry dough, cook them in a hot oven until they began to puff, and then split them open to add cheese. Of course, these early puff pastries weren’t as dainty or delicate as modern ones, but they were the beginning of them.

Over the next couple of hundred years, these pastries were refined until they became something a little bit closer to modern puff pastries in Renaissance France. Pastry chefs in France began to experiment with different mixtures of flour, fat, water, and eggs until they invented what is now known as choux pastry. When the pastry puffs, steam creates a hole that can be later filled with a savory or sweet filling. And that’s the beginning of puff pastries.

Facts About Cream Puffs

Okay, we’ve covered just about everything there is to cover about puff pastries, but just in case, let’s take a few moments to go over some of the other facts we’ve discovered about cream puffs.

• Rumors persist that puff pastries were introduced in France by the wife of Henry II, Catherine de’ Medici.
• The cream puff first appeared on U.S. restaurant menus in the mid-19th century.
• If cream puffs aren’t handled properly, they can deflate upon cooling.
• The world’s largest cream puff weighed 125.5 pounds and was made on August 11, 2011.
• The world’s largest cream puff was created by Dave Schmidt at the Wisconsin State Fair.

Observing National Cream Puff Day

If you have the skills of a pastry chef, then you should have no problem whipping up cream puffs to observe National Cream Puff Day. However, if you’re like the rest of us, then you probably don’t have those skills. Fortunately, you don’t have to in order to celebrate this holiday. Just head to a local bakery, buy some cream puffs, and eat them on this day. Oh, and don’t forget to share some with friends and family, too. After all, we wouldn’t want to leave anyone out of the festivities.