Day Twenty-One - A Recipe

My friend Ashley posted about an Eclair Cake that she made here, and while her cake certainly looks good, it made me think of one of my favorite desserts that I make (and since I knew this topic was creeping up, I thought I would share it here), it is a Cream Puff Cake that can easily be turned into an amazing Eclair Cake (I've done it before by adding a layer of chocolate fudge sauce between the pudding mix and the whipped cream topping).

The Cream Puff Cake is one of my favorites because it is SO good AND it is easily adaptable to different people's tastes AND it is easily adaptable for diabetics (so it can be Pops and Grandpa friendly and still taste good enough to be served to a crowd). The basic recipe is:

1 cup water
½ cup butter
1 cup sifted flour
4 eggs
3 small boxes of instant vanilla pudding
8 oz. cream cheese
3 ½ cups milk
1 tub Cool Whip

Heat water and butter to a rolling boil. Add in flour all at once, stir vigorously over low heat until mixture leaves the pan and forms a ball (about 1 minute). Remove from heat and let set for 10 minutes.

Beat eggs in thoroughly one at a time. Beat until mixture is smooth and velvety. Pour mixture into a 13x9x2 glass baking dish. Bake at 400 degrees for 30-35 minutes. Let cool (when this bakes it rises high and gets puffy, it will settle as it cools).

Combine pudding, softened cream cheese and milk (this works best if you whip the room temperature cream cheese and add the milk in SUPER slowly making sure it is incorporated without clumping then add the pudding). Pour over the crust in the dish. Top with Cool Whip and garnish with grated chocolate or bananas.

* Don’t be afraid to mix this one up, use different pudding/fruit/chocolate mixtures to make it your own!

To make this recipe diabetic friendly use sugar free pudding, and use Cool Whip Free, Cool Whip Lite, or Cool Whip Sugar Free.

ENJOY!