How long had it been since we saw a cream horn in a bakery? A decade? Two decades? Possibly. And then two sightings within a month.
Cream horns, for those unaware of the phrase and/or the pastry, are long tubes of puff pastry wrapped around a cone-shaped mold before they’re baked. They generally end up about 5 inches long, wider at one end than the other, but open at both ends. After they’re baked, the filling is squirted inside with a pastry bag. (That, of course, explains why those funny-looking things used to ice party cakes are called pastry bags, not icing bags.)
What goes inside? I grew up thinking it was butter cream, fluffier than frosting but with that same richness delivered by fat and sugar. Some bakers fill them with whipped cream, but while the cream is lighter it’s also wetter, making it imperative they be filled just before eating, lest a lethal sogginess set in. Sometimes they arrive unadorned, but mostly they’re topped by powdered sugar or coarse-grained sparkling sugar.
We found the cream horns at the new Hampton Bakery, in the Pitted Olive’s former site, a location we drive by every few weeks, and couldn’t resist. The filling is indeed butter cream, with a maraschino cherry half in one end, a la cannoli, and the pastry is particularly crisp and tasty. We also saw them (but resisted the temptation, amazingly) at The Donut Palace of Ellisville. These, too, are filled with butter cream—oh, happy day!
Definitely on the comeback trail.
Hampton Bakery
5815 Hampton
314-352-8885
The Donut Palace of Ellisville
37 Clarkson, Ellisville
636-527-2227
