You really can’t go wrong with a classic chocolate orange flavor combination tucked inside a cream puff.
It’s a mouthful of pure joy.
It took me 8 hours, but I created a 100% vegan petit fours tray with amaretti, macarons with lemon curd, and choux pastry with orange crème patissiere and chocolate ganache.
The theme I chose was “tea with my grandmas” – for my Italian grandma, I have the amaretti and the choux pastry bigne that she used to make. For my British grandma, I have the lemon curd macarons and the classic chocolate orange flavor combination for the choux.
Here is the recipe for macarons with lemon curd. The amaretti are here and the macarons are here.
This was the showstopper challenge from the great British bake-off, season 1, episode 2. Phew!
I don’t know how they did it in 4 hours, but then again I was inventing vegan versions of the recipes as I went, with 3 kids, a dog and a puppy running around. Needless to say, the tray got polished off pretty quickly!
Great British Bakeoff Vegan: Season 1, Episode 2, Showstopper
Ingredients
Choux buns
- 1 ¼ cups soy milk
- ½ tsp salt
- 2 tsp sugar
- 1 1/1 cups flour
- about 350-450 mL Just Egg liquid (1 bottle)
Orange creme patissiere
- 2 cups soy milk
- ⅓ cup cornstarch
- ½ cup sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1 orange peel, grated
- Pinch turmeric (for colour)
- ½ tsp orange extract
Chocolate ganache
- 1 ½ cups chocolate chips
- ½ cup soy milk
Directions
Make the choux buns: in a small pan, bring the soy milk, salt and sugar to a boil. Add in the flour and mix it into a ball, cook for 1 minute, and cool for a few minutes in a bowl. Then mix in up to 350 mL Just Egg until the dough is shiny, smooth and pipeable. I used a food processor to make it extra smooth.
While the dough is still warm, spoon it into a piping bag fitted with a 1/2″ open round tip. On a parchment-lined baking sheet, pipe out choux blobs about 2″ in diameter, and leave 3″ between the blobs. Use a wet finger to gently push down the peak at the top of each blob, and gently brush each one with a little soy milk or melted vegan butter.
Bake at 400F for 20 mins, then turn the oven down to 350F (without opening the door) and bake for another 10 mins until they are nice and golden. Cool completely on a wire rack before filling.
Make the orange creme pat: whisk all the ingredients together in a small pot over medium heat until it starts to bubble and is almost thick, then remove from heat and keep whisking for 1 minute more. If it sticks to a spatula and you can run a finger through it to have a clean spatula underneath, it’s ready.
Make the chocolate ganache: Melt the chocolate chips and soy milk together on double boiler, stirring well, then remove from heat and let it cool a bit. If it gets too solid, you can melt it again.
Assemble: slice each choux bun in half but not all the way through, spoon a generous amount of orange creme pat into it, and dip the top in chocolate ganache. Voila! Your profiteroles are ready to enjoy. 🙂
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