Take a good bite into any Japanese cream puff (or choux creme) and your immediate thoughts will be something along the lines of “omg, this tastes amazing. Is this heaven in a pastry?” quickly followed up by “oh wait...this is a mess”.
There's no denying that cream puffs are one of the best desserts out there, but at the same time, many choose to avoid eating them because there's almost a 100% chance guarantee that doing so will result in a custard explosion no one is quite prepared for.

Whilst this somewhat messy drawback hasn’t ever really put me personally off of choosing to eat a cream puff, this stick version of the treat from KOBE CHOU STICK has caught my attention.

Instead of stuffing whipped custard into an inflated ball of choux pastry, the KOBE CHOU STICK store allows customers to dip crispy sticks of choux pastry into a pot of their favourite flavoured custard.

The concept was developed through the cooperation of a former pastry chef from a Henri Charpentier patisserie based in Ashiya city and another pastry chef who previously worked at Kobe’s East Royal dessert store.

At KOBE CHOU STICK there are six different flavours of dipping custard to enjoy a cream puff stick with. Choose from a pot of vanilla custard, cheese cream, strawberry, chocolate, zunda matcha or honey caramel (sold at an additional 100 yen). KOBE CHOU STICK plans to add an additional four flavours to the custard lineup in the next coming months, and is hoping to include a limited edition flavour with the change of the seasons.

A pot of custard and three dipping sticks is charged at 550 yen, whilst a larger takeout box set with six sticks and two dips is available for 980 yen, and a gift box version (six sticks, two dips) can be purchased for 1200 yen.

KOBE CHOU STICK is scheduled to open its doors for the first time on the 29th of October, and can be found in front of the ticket gate of the Keisei Electric Railway at Chiba-Chūō station.