24 pastry cream recipes

Nut horns are Eastern European cream cheese pastries filled with a sweet walnut meringue filling. The dough chills overnight for a flaky, tender bite that melts in your mouth.

Hungarian tarts with a cream cheese pastry shell and five filling options: almond, pecan, walnut, coconut, and farmer's cheese. A traditional holiday baking project.

Black Forest rugalach pastries with a cream cheese dough wrapped around boozy cherry, dark chocolate and walnut filling. The Jewish bakery classic given a chocolate-cherry overhaul straight out of the German cake playbook.

Ukrainian almond crescents with a tender sour cream yeast pastry rolled around a ground almond and brown sugar filling. Flaky, nutty, and golden, these Eastern European cookies melt in your mouth.

Lemon cream and nut cookies, buttery shortbread ovals spread with homemade lemon curd and crowned with toasted almonds, hazelnuts, walnuts, prunes, rum-soaked raisins, and candied orange. A jewel-box holiday cookie.

Kolachky dough made with cream cheese, butter, egg yolks, and flour. An overnight pastry dough that rolls out flaky and tender for filling with fruit or nuts.

Old-fashioned stovetop apple dessert with layers of pastry squares and spiced apples cooked in a kettle. This vintage pot pie simmers until tender, then gets served with cream.

Rigo Jancsi, the classic Hungarian chocolate cake with two layers of rich sponge filled with rum-spiked chocolate cream and topped with a glossy chocolate glaze. An elegant European pastry.