These little puffballs came to be because another recipe failed. It’s so frustrating when that happens.
But now I have a stellar recipe for cream cheese puffs that are ready in 15 minutes flat. Silver linings.
The failed recipe was for vegan banana muffins with a brown sugar streusel. I have a great vegan banana muffin recipe and all I was changing was adding streusel to the top, but it was apparently too heavy for the eggless dough and the muffins collapsed. They tasted great, but weren’t pretty enough to blog about.
I still had muffins on my brain, and pulled out two mini muffin pans, without knowing what batter I was going to make to fill them.
Something fast, easy, and fuss-free were requirements. Time was ticking. Make something. Hurry up. Daylight is burning. The days are getting shorter. Hurry up. Think. Think. Think. No more recipe fails. That was going on in my head.
I looked around my fridge and grabbed a nearly used container of spreadable light cream cheese, leftover from the Salted Caramel Apple Cheesecake Bars, along with one stick of butter. To that I added 1 cup flour, baking powder, salt, and milk.
There are only 4 ingredients in these puffs, 6 if you count baking powder and salt.
The batter takes about 3 minutes to come together, and with less than 12 minutes to bake, you’ll be popping warm, fresh, soft bread in 15 minutes. They’re like 15-minute dinner rolls or biscuits, minus kneading, rolling, or cutting out. You can’t beat it.
I put all the ingredients in a mixing bowl except the milk, and beat it together with my hand mixer. The batter was extremely thick and I drizzled in milk to thin it. I used 3/4 cup milk, you’ll probably use about the same, but because ingredients vary, you may need slightly more or less. The batter is very thick, pasty, dense, and far thicker than your average muffin batter.
You could likely keep them vegan by using vegan varieties of butter, cream cheese, and milk, and since there’s no egg, a vegan version seems very plausible, but I haven’t tried it. I had one failed vegan muffin recipe, and wasn’t willing to push my luck that day.
Unlike my failed banana muffins, the puffs rise extremely well. Filling the cavities of your muffin pan to three-quarters full using 1 rounded tablespoon of batter is ideal.
I made 20 mini puffs, and while I’m sure you can bake them in a standard size muffin pan for a longer duration, part of the charm is the mini size. Mini food is so much more fun to eat, and I swear it tastes better.
However, mini food, especially muffins, can turn so dry, so quickly. The fat in the butter and cream cheese helps prevent that. They’re moist, buttery, and squishy soft.
Be sure not to overbake them. Baking for 11 to 12 minutes was perfect for me and any longer than 12 minutes, and they would have turned too dark of a brown around the base, which you can’t see until you release the puffs from the pan. Bake until they’re set and springy to the touch, but don’t wait for the tops to turn golden. They won’t, and will stay very white.
You could add warming spices to the batter like cinnamon, pumpkin pie spice, nutmeg; or go savory with garlic, onion, smoked paprika. The flavor reads more buttery than cream cheesey and they’re a perfect blank canvas, receptive to many different spices and seasonings.
The interior texture is a cross between an English muffin and a traditional biscuit, with lots of nooks and crannies, perfect for drenching with butter, jam, honey, or smearing on cream cheese.
Use them as the dippers for your favorite dips or chutneys, or serve them with soup.
Warm and fresh from the oven, these things were like Pringles. Once you pop, you can’t stop.
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Soft Baked Mini Cream Cheese Puffs
Ingredients
- ½ cup unsalted butter, softened to room temp
- ½ cup cream cheese, reduced fat or light cream cheese is okay; I used Trader Joe’s spreadable light
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
- ½ teaspoon salt, or to taste
- about 3/4 cup milk
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 425F and spray mini muffin pans with floured cooking spray, or grease and flour the pans; set aside.
- In a large mixing bowl, combine all ingredients except milk and beat with an electric mixer to combine, about 2 minutes on medium high speed. Mixture will be very crumbly, with pebbles and sandy bits.
- Slowly drizzle in up to 3/4 cup milk; just enough so that batter will combine and come together. Note – this batter is very thick and paste-like, and I only used 3/4 cup milk. If yours is thick to the point you can’t stir it, add milk, as necessary to thin it.
- Using a tablespoon or small cookie scoop that’s been sprayed with cooking spray (helps batter slide off spoon or scoop easily), form rounded 1 tablespoon mounds and place mounds into prepared pans. Each cavity of pan should be filled about 3/4 full. The cavities are small and the batter is thick, and it’s okay if they’re not all filled exactly uniformly. As the bake, batter that was placed in the pan in a very rounded fashion (like a perfect scoop of ice cream) will bake up more domed and puffed than batter that was just smooshed in. They rise very well; be careful not to overfill.
- Bake for about 11 to 12 minutes, or until puffs are springy to the touch, and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Don’t overbake because they’ll be prone to becoming dry and the bases will turn overly dark (and you can’t see this until you release them from the pans). Allow puffs to cool in pans for about 10 minutes, or until they’ve firmed up and are cool enough to handle. Puffs are best fresh, but will keep airtight at room temperature for up to 3 days, or in the freezer for up to 4 months. Serve plain or with butter, cream cheese, jam/jelly, honey, chutney, dips, soup.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
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Any notable baking fails you can remember?
Wow these little puffs look too cute! I love how fluffy they look inside!
I’m so sorry to hear about your muffin frustration. What a pain!! But I’m also secretly grateful that they didn’t work out because I am in love with this recipe.
Light and fluffy they look just like angel cake!!! Great recipe,easy and quick!!
Angel cake – great comparison!
These cheese puffs look amazing! Kind of glad the other recipe failed, because it resulted in this one :)
I know. I didn’t really need that 37th banana recipe anyway!
I want to inhale that whole stack, too cute!
Recipe fail or not, these look so good! I just want to reach out and grab one… and then slather it with jam and butter… and then eat it. Fast.
OOOOOOOOOmg. Opening mouth and just waiting for these to fall into it.
Recipe fails are seriously such a bummer, especially when they taste awesome but look terrible. I had one of those a few days ago, but I did not get a great recipe out of a failed one that day! These cream puffs sound and look incredible. Perfect for the upcoming the upcoming holiday season!
I was in a jam and needed a recipe to photograph. You know how it is when have a schedule and need to stick to it so that the next day or two of cooking/cooling/pre-doing/etc isn’t wasted and scrambly!
These are adorable and look so light and fluffy! Great idea to add spices.
Oh my goodness, these are so adorable! Mini anything baked is always adorable. I love how soft and airy – and easy – these look!
super easy – the best kind of recipe :)
haha once you pop, you can’t stop. I have a feeling that would happen to me if I made these! I really like how simple these are – and that they have cream cheese in them!
It happens to me every time with mini stuff!
These look so tasty! I’m loving how simple and quick they are! Pinning!
Oh, I hate it when I waste ingredients on failed recipes!
thanks for pinning!
How did you know I was thinking about what kind of bread/rolls to make this weekend to go with some butternut squash soup?!? Your timing for this post is perfect and these look like tasty little gems! I’d love to make a yeast bread but won’t really have the time so a 15 min recipe will be so handy. I may take a look at some of the flavored cream cheeses and see if anything jumps out at me. Glad your banana muffins still tasted good–I love visually appealing food but my taste buds don’t really care how something looks. I know it’s a totally different story with food photography. I just burned the tar out of some squash seeds a couple of weeks ago. Spent all that time picking those slippery things out of the stringy goo, dehydrated them and then proceeded to ruin the whole batch.
Omg your seed story sounds like a nightmare! I have done things like that – really intricate recipes or that the prep work is so laborious – only to mess it up. Gah!
And yes if you had like a chive flavored cream cheese or any seasonal pumpkin-ish flavors or just add some spices to plain cream cheese, these little guys are so receptive to it. Blank canvas! LMK how you like them and what you end up tossing in!
I’m sorry your banana muffins didn’t turn out the way you wanted them to. But these little cream cheese puffs look so soft, fluffy, and buttery. A cross between an English muffin and a biscuit? Sign me up!
Every once in awhile there’s a silver lining with a recipe fail!
they look pretty tasty to me! reminds me of crumpt toast bites. sorry about your muffins but that is the joy of baking isn’t it? the Surprize recipes like this!
Crumpt toast bites – never had those! I’m making Anzac biscuits/cookies later today after trying some at a potluck yesterday. Been wanting to do them forever but never have been motivated but these were so good. Thought of you!
Wow, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a bread recipe quote like this! I’m thoroughly intrigued. Bookmarking for the day I have excess cream cheese around…
You mean you don’t always have at least 3 containers on hand? :)