364 pastry cream recipes

Honey almond tartlets with a flaky sour cream pastry shell, cream cheese and honey filling, toasted almonds, and fresh strawberries on top. An elegant make-ahead dessert.

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.

Pumpkin cheesecake with a buttery shortcrust pastry, spiced cream cheese filling with allspice, ginger, and cinnamon. Slow-baked and cooled in the oven to prevent cracking.

Crawfish canapes with sweet tails in a quick vermouth-cream sauce with shallots, dill, and briny capers, spooned into crisp pastry shells. An elegant Louisiana-meets-French cocktail bite.

Kolacky cookies made with a tender cream cheese pastry dough filled with fruit spread, pinched into tri-cornered shapes, and baked golden. A Czech holiday cookie tradition.

This is a rich, interesting cookie, made with nuts, raisins, cinnamon, and jam rolled into a tender cream-cheese pastry.

Creamy chicken pot pie with a buttery flaky pastry topping over chunks of chicken, carrots, celery, and onion in a half-and-half cream sauce. Single-crust comfort that bakes up bubbly and golden.

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

Classic French-style lobster tart with a buttery lard-and-butter pastry, sweet lobster medallions, and a silky egg-and-cream custard. An old-school dinner-party showstopper.

White chocolate cream filling stabilized with gelatin for cakes, pastries, and holiday desserts. Grated white chocolate baking bar melted into whipped cream with vanilla for a rich, pipeable filling.

Mini bacon cheese quiches in a tender cream cheese pastry shell, filled with crisp bacon, cheddar, Swiss, onion, and a custard of eggs and half and half. Make-ahead, freezer-friendly party bites.

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.

Jam kolaches fold a cream cheese pastry dough around a dot of strawberry jam, then bake into tender pillows dusted with powdered sugar. The Czech-American Christmas cookie with a four-ingredient base.

Savory sherry cheese puffs: bite-size choux pastries filled with cream cheese, sharp cheddar, chopped green olives, and a splash of dry sherry. A retro cocktail-party appetizer.

Miniature cream cheese tassies filled with apricot fruit filling, nuts, and vanilla in a buttery pastry cup. Bite-sized holiday cookies baked in mini muffin tins.

Apricot walnut crescent cookies with a flaky sour cream pastry rolled around apricot preserves and ground walnuts, dusted with powdered sugar. An Eastern European holiday classic.