This Mango Cream Puffs recipe yields crunchy mango craquelin over choux pastry puffs filled with a mango crème légère and salted mango puree. The crème légère filling is a mango pastry cream recipe that is lightened with mango whipped cream.
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These fruity choux au craquelin were another challenge from my partner, Cody. They love any pastry cream-centric recipes I make and love mango so this was bound to happen. I adapted this recipe from Serious Eats.
These are technically Mango Choux au Craquelin, which I based off my Strawberry Choux au Craquelin. I also used these components in creating my Turkey Croquembouche, which is a perfect centerpiece for Thanksgiving.
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Why you'll love this recipe
- This recipe uses real mango.
- There is mango in three components.
- The sweet crème légère is balanced by the more neutral choux pastry and the salted puree.
- The mango craquelin is crunchy to provide texture contrast to the soft filling.
Ingredients
- I used fresh and freeze-dried mango powder for maximum mango flavor.
- Whole milk and heavy cream add richness to the crème légère.
- Brown sugar sweetens the craquelin and white sugar sweetens the crème légère.
- Cornstarch and all-purpose flour thicken the crème légère.
- Vanilla and kosher salt balance the overall flavor profile.
See recipe card below for a full list of ingredients and measurements.
Substitutions and variations
Here’s how to customize these mango cream puffs to your liking:
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- Brown sugar craquelin — replace the mango craquelin with brown sugar craquelin by omitting the freeze dried mango powder and yellow/orange dye.
- No freeze-dried mango powder — omit the freeze-dried mango powder completely.
- No heavy cream — skip the heavy cream portion of the filling recipe and just fill the choux with the mango pastry cream.
- Decoration — use sprinkles, freeze-dried mango bits or leave off the decoration completely.
This recipe has not been tested with any substitutions or variations. If you try any, please let me know how it turned out by commenting below!
How to make mango cream puffs
Step 1: Puree the mango and cook it down until reduced by half. Set aside 3.5 oz of it for the salted puree. Use the rest to make the mango pastry cream according to recipe instructions and chill it completely. Whip the heavy cream and mango powder together until stiff peaks. Set some aside for garnishing. Fold the remaining amount into the chilled mango cream.
Step 2: Pipe dollops of choux batter on the prepared pans.
Step 3: Place a 2-inch circle of frozen craquelin on top of each unbaked dollop. Bake and make a hole in the bottom.
Step 4: Fill with the crème légère and salted mango puree. Garnish with whipped cream and fresh mango, if desired.
Hot tips
- I like to fit my piping bag with a large round piping tip when piping dollops of choux pastry.
- If serving leftovers, keep the choux au craquelin separate from the fillings until ready to serve. Reheat the unfilled choux in a 350ºF oven for 5-7 minutes or until crisped back up. Cool on a wire rack before filling.
Recipe FAQs
Yes, reheat baked unfilled choux au craquelin in a 350ºF oven for 5-7 minutes or until crisped back up. Cool on a wire rack before filling.
Yes, omit the mango and dye completely for a brown sugar choux au craquelin with a vanilla bean crème légère.
Yes, freeze unbaked choux au craquelin on the tray until frozen solid. Then remove the dollops to an airtight container to freeze for 1-2 months. Bake from frozen.
More recipes you'll love
Lastly, if you make this Mango Cream Puffs recipe be sure to leave a comment or give it a rating. I love to see when people make my recipes, so please tag me @youthsweets on Instagram if you post!
📖 Recipe
Mango Cream Puffs
Equipment
Ingredients
Mango crème légère
- 1.5 lb mango fresh, peeled and deseeded
- 1 ¾ cup whole milk (430g)
- 1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste or extract
- ½ cup granulated sugar (100g)
- 4 egg yolks (60g)
- 2 tablespoon all-purpose flour (12g)
- 2 tablespoon cornstarch (11g)
- ½ teaspoon citric acid optional, or 1 teaspoon lemon juice
- ¾ cup heavy cream (175mL)
- 1 tablespoon freeze-dried mango powder optional
Mango craquelin
- ½ cup light brown sugar (115g)
- ½ cup unsalted butter (1 stick, 4 oz, 115g cut into ½-inch cubes) room temperature
- 2 tablespoon freeze-dried mango powder optional
- 4 ounces all-purpose flour (about 1 cup, 115g)
- ⅛ teaspoon kosher salt
- few drops orange food coloring optional
Choux pastry
Instructions
Do ahead
- This is a labor intensive recipe. It can be all done in one day, but feel free to make the mango crème légère, craquelin and puree a day ahead of time. The assembled cream puffs needs to be served the same day they are made, so wait to make the choux until the day of serving.
Make the mango crème légère
- Place the prepared mango in a blender and blend until completely smooth. Pour into a medium saucepan and cook over medium heat, stirring often, until reduced by half. Set aside 3.5oz (100g) of the puree for later. Let the rest of the puree cool slightly.
- Combine the rest of the cooked and mostly cooled mango puree, milk and vanilla in a medium saucepan over medium heat until simmering. Remove from heat.
- Combine the granulated sugar and egg yolks in a medium bowl. Whisk by hand or with beaters until light yellow and fluffy.
- Add flour and cornstarch and whisk until thoroughly combined and lightened even further.
- Slowly stream in warmed mango milk with a ladle while whisking vigorously to prevent cooking the eggs. Continue slowly adding in the milk mixture until it is all combined.
- Return the entire mixture to the medium saucepan and place over low heat. Whisk constantly until the pastry cream has thickened to a pudding consistency. This can take 5-10+ minutes. Remove from the heat promptly and transfer to a heatproof bowl.
- Cover with plastic and press down to touch the surface of the pastry cream to prevent a skin from forming. Chill at least 1 hour or place over a bowl of ice to chill it faster. While waiting on this to chill, feel free to move on to next steps and come back to finish this when you are ready to fill the choux.
- When the pastry cream is completely chilled, whip the ¾ cup heavy cream and freeze-dried mango powder until stiff peaks form. Reserve a bit of the whipped cream for decorating, if desired. Gently fold the remaining whipped cream into the completely chilled mango pastry cream. Transfer to a large piping bag and set aside until ready to fill the choux.
Make the mango craquelin
- Prepare a sheet pan and two large rectangles of parchment paper. Combine the brown sugar and softened butter either by hand or with beaters until smooth, about 3 minutes.
- Add the flour, mango powder and kosher salt. Mix to combine. Add food coloring, if desired, and beat to combine.
- Place the dough on top of one of the sheets of parchment paper. Cover with the second parchment paper sheet.
- Roll the dough between the parchment with a rolling pin until ⅛-inch thick. Place the dough between the sheets of parchment on the baking sheet and transfer to the freezer to freeze solid, about 5-10 minutes.
- Working quickly, remove the top piece of parchment and place it back on the sheet pan. Punch out circles of the frozen dough with a 2-inch round cutter. Transfer these circles back to the sheet pan lined with parchment. Freeze until ready to use.
Make the choux pastry
- Preheat the oven to 375ºF. Prepare two sheet pans with parchment paper. On the backsides of the parchment paper sheets use a 2-inch cutter and pencil to mark 9 circles (in 3 rows of 3).
- Make the choux pastry according to Serious Eats’ instructions. Transfer to a piping bag, optionally fitted with a piping tip**.
- Hold the piping bag straight up and down, apply medium pressure and pipe dollops of choux batter in the middle of the 2-inch circles until just about reaching the border of the circles on one of the prepared pans. Reserve the rest of the batter for the next pan after baking the first.
Top with craquelin and bake
- Place one circle of frozen craquelin on top of each unbaked choux dollop before baking. Bake for about 30 minutes, until the bottom edges of the choux are golden brown. Turn off the oven.
- Working quickly, remove the tray from the oven briefly to poke holes in the bottom of the still hot choux with a paring knife to allow the steam inside to escape.
- Return the choux to the tray and return the tray to the oven. Use a wooden spoon to crack the door of the oven with the choux inside. Let the choux sit in there for 30 minutes before removing and allowing the choux to cool on a wire rack completely.
Make the salted mango puree
- Combine the reserved mango puree and salt in a small bowl. Transfer to a small piping bag.
Assemble
- Snip a small bit off of the end of the piping bags full of mango crème légère and the salted puree. You want a small enough opening so that you can insert the bag into the hole you created in the bottom of each choux.
- Fill each choux au craquelin first with crème légère and then with a bit of the salted mango puree. Some may spill out of the bottom hole, just swipe this away with a clean finger or paring knife.
- Garnish with reserved whipped cream, if desired, and fresh mango. Serve immediately.
