Cream Puff Christmas Gifts

I have such wonderful neighbors and always want to give them something special at Christmastime. Unfortunately I am not the best cook, so whenever I try to attempt to make something fancy, it always ends up being a disaster. (No, seriously. It does! LOL!) This year I tried a couple of fun recipes that I pinned on my “Yummy Things to Cook” Pinterest board, but most of them didn’t quite work out. Soooo…I reverted to one of my all time favorite desserts, and one that it pretty hard to mess up—cream puffs. Cream puffs and eclairs have to be the best desserts ever invented. I could sit and eat an entire plateful in one sitting! I’ll share the recipe below.

After I made the cream puff/eclairs (and fought to not eat them all), I packaged them in a 4″ x 4″ clear box that I ordered from www.clearbags.com. I wrapped the box with some dark chocolate striped grosgrain ribbon, then added a tag with some Cranberry Bakers Twine. The tag was cut with the Artiste Cricut cartridge and stamped with the Very Merry Christmas stamp set (October Stamp of the Month.)

Here is the easy, peasy recipe that I use when I make these scrumptious treats…

Ingredients:
1 sheet frozen pastry puff (1/2 of 17.3 oz pkg), thawed
1 cup cold milk
1 pkg (4-serving size) JELL-O Vanilla Flavor Instant Pudding & Pie Filling
1/2 cup thawed Cool Whip
1 square Baker’s Semi-Sweet Baking Chocolate, melted

Recipe:
Preheat oven to 400°F. Unfold pastry on lightly floured surface; roll pastry out to 10″ square. Cut into 9 circles with 3″ cookie cutter or rim of glass. (I actually just cut mine into squares so that none of the yummy pastry is wasted.) Place on ungreased baking sheet. Bake 10 minutes. Remove to wire racks; cool completely.

Meanwhile, pour milk into large bowl. Add dry pudding mix. Beat with wire whisk 2 minutes or until well blended. Gently stir in whipped topping. Cover. Refrigerate for 15 minutes.

Cut pastry circles horizontally in half. Spoon pudding mixture evenly into bottom halves of pastry; cover with tops. Drizzle with chocolate. (I also added some powdered sugar on top.) Serve immediately, or cover and refrigerate until ready to serve.

And there you have it. The one and only thing I know how to make in the kitchen. LOL!
Enjoy!