Coco puffs are not the cereal. If I say "coco puff" in Honolulu, nobody pictures breakfast — they picture the chocolate-cream-filled choux pastry that Liliha Bakery has been turning out for decades from its Liliha-neighborhood roots. A coco puff is the size of a small fist. Eggshell-thin choux on the outside, a heavy pour of cold chocolate pudding cream inside, and a crown of yellow chantilly frosting on top. The chantilly is the giveaway. Every cream puff I grew up with on the mainland got finished with powdered sugar or whipped cream; Liliha caps theirs with a cooked custard-butter frosting that has the consistency of cake icing and the deep cooked-yolk color to match.
Hawaii chantilly is its own animal. Not whipped cream at all — a cooked frosting of evaporated milk, sugar, butter, and egg yolks reduced together until it thickens. You'll see the same frosting on chantilly cake and on some dobash cakes. The whole coco puff is built on contrast: ice-cold chocolate pudding cream against a room-temperature chantilly cap, the choux collapsing around it in one or two bites.
At a glance
12 puffs
30 minutes
1 hour
2.5+ hours
About 4 hours
Moderate
Ingredients
For the choux shells
- 1 cup water
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter, cubed
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup all-purpose flour, sifted
- 4 large eggs, at room temperature
For the chocolate pudding cream
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar
- 1/4 cup cornstarch
- 1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 2 cups whole milk
- 3 oz semisweet chocolate, chopped
- 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
For the chantilly frosting
- 1 cup evaporated milk (about 1 small can)
- 3/4 cup granulated sugar
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter
- 3 large egg yolks
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/2 cup sweetened shredded coconut (optional, for garnish)
Equipment
- Heavy-bottomed 3-quart saucepan
- Wooden spoon, whisk, and rubber spatula
- Stand mixer or hand mixer
- Two parchment-lined sheet pans
- Piping bag with a 1/2-inch round tip (or a zip-top bag with a corner snipped)
Method
- Pudding cream first. I always start here because it needs a long chill. Whisk the sugar, cornstarch, cocoa, and salt together in a heavy saucepan. Slowly whisk in the milk until smooth. Cook over medium heat, whisking constantly, until it comes to a low boil and thickens to pudding consistency, about 6 to 8 minutes. Off the heat, whisk in the chopped chocolate, butter, and vanilla until smooth. Press plastic wrap directly onto the surface and chill in the fridge for at least 2 hours. It needs to be cold and stiff before piping.
- Make the chantilly. Combine the evaporated milk, sugar, butter, and egg yolks in another heavy saucepan. Cook over medium-low heat, whisking constantly, until it coats the back of a spoon and reads about 170°F on a thermometer — usually 10 to 12 minutes. Don't let it boil. Off the heat, stir in the vanilla. Cool to room temperature; it firms up further as it sits. You want the finished texture spreadable, like a soft buttercream.
- Bake the choux. Preheat the oven to 425°F. Bring the water, butter, and salt to a rolling boil in a saucepan. Off the heat, dump in the flour all at once and stir hard with a wooden spoon until the dough pulls into a smooth ball. Return to medium heat and stir for 2 minutes to dry it out slightly. Transfer to a mixer and beat on low until cooled to lukewarm. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each, until the dough is glossy and falls from the paddle in a V-shape.
- Pipe and bake. Pipe 12 mounds about 2.5 inches across onto parchment-lined sheet pans, leaving 2 inches between them. Smooth any pointed tips with a wet finger. Bake at 425°F for 15 minutes, then drop to 350°F and bake 20 to 25 minutes more until deep golden and dry. Don't crack the oven door before the 30-minute mark or they'll collapse on you. Cool completely on a rack.
- Fill and frost. Whisk the chilled chocolate pudding briefly to loosen it. Spoon it into a piping bag fitted with a 1/2-inch round tip. Poke the tip into the bottom of each puff and fill until the puff feels heavy in your hand. Set the puffs right side up and spread a generous swoop of chantilly across the top. Scatter shredded coconut over the chantilly if you want. Refrigerate uncovered for 30 minutes so the chantilly sets, then serve cold.
Notes from a local cook
Cold, then cold again. Both the pudding cream and the finished puffs need to be cold when they hit the table. A warm puff with a warm chantilly slides off. The bakery version comes straight from a refrigerated case, and that's the texture I'm chasing at home.
The chantilly is not whipped cream. If you've only had French chantilly, this will throw you. The Hawaii version is a cooked frosting closer in spirit to a German buttercream or an old-fashioned cooked caramel icing. It tastes deeply of cooked yolks and milk. Don't swap in whipped cream — you'll get a different dessert.
Pudding consistency matters. Too thin and it leaks out the bottom. Too stiff and it won't pipe. The fix either way is gentle: whisk in 1 to 2 tablespoons of milk to loosen, or chill another 30 minutes to firm up. Aim for soft-serve texture going into the piping bag.
Storage. These are best the day they're filled. They'll hold in the fridge for 1 day, with the choux softening a little as it pulls moisture from the cream. The two component creams keep separately for 3 to 4 days, so I'll often stage the work across two days and assemble fresh.
While You're on the Islands
Eat it made by someone else. The original is at Liliha Bakery's flagship at 515 N. Kuakini Street in the Liliha neighborhood — not on North School Street, as I assumed for years. The bakery now runs six locations across Oahu, including Nimitz, Ala Moana, Waikiki, Waikiki Beach Walk, and Pearl Highlands. For a wider sweep of Honolulu bakery icons in context, see our Oahu dining guide and our chantilly cake recipe. The cake uses the same chantilly frosting you'll make for these puffs.
Bring It Home
What you can substitute, what you can't: evaporated milk and choux pastry ingredients (butter, flour, eggs) are stocked everywhere — nothing here needs sourcing from Hawaii. This is a technique pastry, not an ingredient one, so practice the choux and the chantilly frosting more than you worry about substitutions.
Where to try this in Hawaii
