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Homemade cream horns

Wed, 03/13/2019 - 8:15am

Do I have a treat for you this week! This cream horn recipe is from a very dear friend, Martha Holbrook. She was kind enough to give it to my twinners and Evie has it mastered. Evie was kind enough to come to my house on Sunday to make them for us. Evie wanted me to help but as you can see in one of the pictures, I’m not good with puff pastry, lol.

To make cream horns, you will need a few special items. You will need eight cream horn molds (I borrowed my daughter’s, who got them on Amazon for under $10), as well as a piping bag and a large tip to fill the horns with filling. This recipe’s filling is large enough to fill two boxes of puff pastry, but if you only have or want to make one box (16 cream horns) you can put the extra filling in an airtight bag and freeze it.

For the filling, you will need two sticks of butter (at room temp.) 1 cup of Crisco, 4 cups confectionery sugar, ¾ cup of marshmallow Fluff, and 4 tsp. vanilla extract. For making the horns, you will need 1-2 boxes of puff pastry (available in the frozen section at Hannaford) parchment paper to line the baking sheet, butter for greasing the horn molds, 1 egg (beaten to brush on the puff pastry before baking) and extra confectionery sugar, cocoa powder or melted chocolate to sprinkle or drizzle on the cream horns when finished.

First we are going to get out of all our ingredients to make sure that we have everything we need, and to make sure we take out two sticks of butter and our puff pastry shells so they can come to room temperature. After we have everything out, it’s time to start the marshmallow cream filling. Start by creaming together your room temp butter and Crisco together until it becomes fluffy. After, begin adding in your confectionery sugar one cup at a time until it is smooth and fully mixed in. Lastly, add the vanilla and Fluff and beat together until peaks begin to form. Prep your piping bag and tip by filling it with the marshmallow cream (or a large plastic ziplock bag with an end cut off and a large tip) and set to the side.

Once your puff pastry has thawed for about 15-20 minutes (time can vary, you want to make sure that the pastry sheet is soft enough to fold out without breaking, but not so soft that it becomes difficult to work with), it’s time to cut it. Each pastry sheet should be cut into eight equal strips. Once this is done, you want to make sure that your cookie sheet in lined with parchment paper, and that your horn molds are lightly greased with butter. If you put too much grease on them (or use cooking spray like Pam, which Evie has tried before), it makes the mold way too greasy and very difficult to work with.

When both the pastry is cut and the molds are greased, you can begin winding the pastry around the point of the cone, slightly overlapping the pastry layers as you go. When finished, set them in the baking sheet seam side down (a step I clearly missed).  Keep in mind that the puff pastry shell will rise, so give them an inch or so of space on the cookie sheet. When you have done this with all eight molds (or your cookie sheet is full), whisk your egg in a bowl with 1 tsp. of water and lightly brush on each of the puff pastry shells. Put them in your 400 degree preheated oven for about 10-15 minutes, or until golden brown.

When they are done cooking, take them off the mold (I use a small dish towel to hold the mold and a fork to push it off) and place on a cooling rack. Once completely cooled, take your piping bag and fill it with your marshmallow cream filling. If you want to stop there you can, or you can give them a garnish. We love to do an extra sprinkle of confectioners’ sugar, cocoa power, or drizzle them with some melted chocolate (milk, white, and dark, whatever you prefer). Voila! There you have it! Delicious cream horns that are perfect anytime of the year (even in the summer – the fluff helps the filling from “melting”!)

I can’t thank Evie enough for sharing this with me and now with you folks.

Have an awesome and safe week … life’s good!