65 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.

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.

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.

Fanky (faworki) are Polish deep-fried pastry diamonds made with egg yolks, sour cream, wine, and butter, dusted with powdered sugar. Thin, crispy, and addictive.

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

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.

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.

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.

Sweet potato and pineapple empanadas in a flaky cream cheese pastry with shredded coconut. Tropical dessert turnovers baked until golden brown.

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.

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.

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.

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

Cream cheese rugelach filled with cinnamon sugar, walnuts, and raisins rolled into flaky crescent pastries. A classic Jewish bakery cookie with a tender, buttery dough.

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

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