National Cream Puff Day – January 2, 2025

History of National Cream Puff Day

The history of cream puffs is a mystery. Culinary historians remain divided, and nobody can agree on who invented this wonderful dessert. What we do know is that the story began somewhere in Europe.

Like all great recipes, this one was passed along by word of mouth — from one pastry chef’s kitchen to the next and eventually crossing international borders.

One theory suggests that Catherine de Medici’s cook invented it. Stories of the legendary pastry made the rounds at her royal court of France. But the account is very likely a myth: Pastry chefs in Renaissance France were already experimenting with dough mixtures of flour, egg, fat, and water. It’s a mixture we would come to know as choux pastry. Others say the origins of the cream puff go back to the Middle Ages. Long before the Medicis and the Renaissance period, French cooks of the 13th century were making puff pastries with delicious cheese and herb fillings.

By the 14th century, cooks were whipping up different versions of cream buns. From pate feuillettée in France to the butter-basted puffs of the English — the pastry comprised the same basic mixture of flour, egg, water, and fat.

The four-ingredient mixture has remained a constant, but how cooks prepare and bake the mix gave rise to different names: puff, profiterole, choux, and buns.

Puff pastries became a culinary phenomenon by the 19th century. Each one had distinct meaning and characteristics. Around this time, the cream puff we know and love became known in pastry circles as the profiterole.

Making cream puffs was an art. Elegant Victorian dinner parties often featured cream puffs in elaborate designs. Sometimes, cooks would make pyramids of tiny, delicate cream puffs that guests could have with after-dinner tea or coffee. In the United States, the first documented mention of the cream puff dates to 1851, at the Revere House Restaurant in Boston.