62 pastry cream recipes

Nancy's ice cream kolacky: a three-ingredient Eastern European-style cookie where vanilla ice cream replaces liquid and eggs, creating a tender pastry dough filled with jam and dusted with powdered sugar. A Christmas cookie-tray favorite.

An elegant French strawberry chibouste-style dessert: pastry cream lightened with Italian meringue, set with gelatin, molded against fresh strawberries over a thin genoise base. A patisserie classic at home.

Apple turnovers with a tender homemade cream cheese pastry, cinnamon-spiced apple filling, and a dusting of powdered sugar. The cream cheese in the dough makes it impossibly flaky.

Apple pie with apricot glaze layers tart Granny Smith apples over a custard pastry cream and finishes with a layer of apricot preserves under the top crust. A French-style twist on classic American apple pie.

Simple biscuit-style apple dumplings with baking powder pastry wrapped around cinnamon-sugar filled apples. Bake until tender, serve warm with milk or cream.

Kolatchkies, cream cheese pastry cookies filled with your choice of fruit filling, pinched shut, and dusted with powdered sugar. A classic Eastern European treat.

Chicken pot pie topped with drop biscuits instead of pastry crust. Creamed chicken, peas, and mushrooms baked under fluffy homemade biscuit dumplings.

Thai mung bean pastries (khanom thuay) with a sweet mung bean flour base topped with coconut-rice flour cream and toasted yellow mung beans. A colorful, no-bake Thai dessert.

Single-crust pastry pie shell with margarine, blind-baked at high heat until golden in 10 minutes. A basic flaky pastry that works as a base for cream pies, custards, and fruit fillings.

Homemade fried elephant ears: sour-cream and buttermilk dough rolled thin, slit, fried golden, then tumbled in cinnamon sugar. State fair pastry made in your own kitchen.

Quebec apple dumplings wrap whole apples in cheddar pastry, each cored and stuffed with rum-spiked mincemeat. Brushed with a brown sugar and lemon cream glaze, baked golden, and served warm with rum cream.

Diabetic-friendly lemon cream pie with a blind-baked pastry crust, tart lemon custard set with gelatin, and a light whipped topping. Bright, creamy, and sugar-free.

Vegan Black Forest cake with whole wheat pastry flour, applesauce, and a kirsch syrup. Cashew-tofu icing replaces dairy whipped cream. Three layers of chocolate cake, cherries, and creamy frosting.

Hungarian pastry cookies made with a flaky sour cream dough, filled with prune lekvar or apricot preserves, folded into pockets, and dusted with powdered sugar.

Golden amaranth shortcake made with amaranth flour, whole wheat pastry flour, tahini, and almonds, topped with crushed pineapple and a blended tofu cream. Dairy-free and honey-sweetened.

Traditional Yorkshire bilberry pie from Haworth with wild bilberries mixed into baked apple pulp, wrapped in pastry and baked until golden. Served with cream.