E-Claire (Cream Puff) Dessert

Probably, everybody and his aunt (and uncle)

already have this recipe and have made it many times...

 it's really nothing different than a big ole' 

flattened out cream puff--  well,... sort of!

When I googled 'cream puff dessert', I came 

up with 3,630,000 sites.  That's ALL?!?!?  

I'm posting this because... it's easy, and 

we like it.   It seems that every potluck 

doing I attend has at least one of 

these there and it goes quickly.

Ingredients for the Crust: 
(The same as for cream puffs)

1 cup water
1/2 cup butter
1 cup all-purpose flour
4 whole eggs

Heat the water and butter until boiling.  Take off heat and stir in the flour.  Keep stirring until the dough sort of forms a ball around your spoon (a good wooden spoon works great!).  Let this cool for about 5 minutes.  Then, add the eggs (one at a time), beating after each addition until the dough gets smooth (about twenty strokes?).  The thing to avoid is putting a raw egg into the hot water/butter/flour mixture and having the first raw egg start to 'cook' if you don't stir it in rapidly enough!

Carefully spread that mixture on a sprayed or greased 17" x 12" jelly roll pan-- stay about 1" from the edges because it will spread out as it bakes.

Bake this for about 25 minutes in a 375-degree oven.  Cool for one hour. 

If high bumps develop during baking, just wait until baked crust has cooled and then 'gently' press those humps lower with a spatula.  Sometimes this layer comes out quite evenly for me; other times, like shown below, it isn't so 'pretty' at all.  It really does not matter much as to how this layer looks because, as I said, just flatten it down a bit.  It's going to be totally covered.

FILLING:
8 ounces cream cheese, softened
2 and 1/2  cups cold milk
1 large box (5.5 oz. size) Vanilla instant pudding mix

• Beat the cream cheese until very smooth-- continue beating while adding milk very slowly.  
• When that mixture is creamy smooth, add the package of dry pudding mix.  
• Continue to mix (at a low speed) until this thickens.     
• Pour this over the baked and cooled crust. (You may prepare this mixture while the crust is baking, but refrigerate it until the crust is baked and cooled.)  

TOPPING:

Cover pudding layer with whipped cream, or other whipped topping.  Like this.

Below:  IF desired, you can drizzle some 
chocolate syrup (or caramel topping?) 
'trails' across the top of the 

creamy layer.  Leave as is, or

swirl the 'trails' around, too, yet.

EXCEPT FOR WHEN SERVING, KEEP 
THIS DESSERT REFRIGERATED