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Vic’s Italian Cream Puffs Without The Cream

Welcome to Vic’s neighborhood, where you’ll meet Vic’s mom, neighbors, wife and daughter and somehow still have time to hear the wide assortment of stories that accompany his Italian cream puff recipe, which is so special it almost caused a fist fight back in the day. This time with Oatly swapped for dairy of course.

Cream Puffs

Yields 24 cream puffs 


Ingredients:

Choux pastry:

1 cup water

½ cup vegetable oil or another mild-flavored oil

Kosher salt

5½ oz of flour

5 eggs

Special stuff you’ll need: A piping bag with a star tip, a stand mixer or hand-held electric mixer, and a charming can-do attitude like our friend Vic’s.

Cream Puffs

Full recipe

Custard base for cream puff filling:

2½ oz sugar

2½ oz flour 

2½ oz cornstarch

2 cups Full Fat Oatly

3 eggs

1 tsp Vanilla extract

1 250ml-container Oatly Whippable Creamy Oat

Confectioners’ sugar, optional

 

Step 1 Preheat your oven to 425ºF/218ºC, and line two sheet trays with parchment.

 

Step 2 In a medium pot, combine water and oil and bring to a simmer, then add the salt and all the flour. Stir vigorously with a wooden spoon over medium heat 1-2 minutes until the mixture forms a smooth ball and pulls away from the sides of the pot. 

 

Step 3 Take the pot off the heat, transfer the pastry dough to the bowl of a standing mixer, and let cool 3-5 minutes until no visible steam is coming off the pastry. (You can speed this process along by letting the stand mixer spin it at a slow speed with the paddle attachment.)

 

Step 4 With the paddle attachment on low-to-medium speed, stir the pastry while slowly adding your eggs one at a time. (A good trick here is to crack all your eggs into a bowl and tip them slowly into the mixing bowl one by one.) 

 

Step 5 Once the eggs are well incorporated, transfer the pastry to that large piping bag fitted with a large star tip that we mentioned above. With quick circular motions, pipe 12 choux puffs, each 1 to 1½ inches in diameter, on each sheet tray.

 

Step 6 Bake your choux puffs for 35-40 minutes, rotating halfway through the bake time, until golden brown. 

 

Step 7 Remove from the oven and let cool completely on a cooling rack while you make the custard. Oh, you thought you were done?

 

 

The Custard Part:


Step 1 In a medium pot, mix the dry ingredients (sugar, flour, cornstarch), then slowly whisk in the Full Fat Oatly, mixing until no lumps remain. Warm the mixture over medium heat until small bubbles form. 

 

Step 2 Temper the eggs by adding about ¼ cup of the oat mixture by the spoonful to a bowl with the cracked eggs, mixing until combined. Slowly, while stirring, add the egg/oat mixture back into the pot. Let this mixture bubble over low heat till very thick and smooth.

 

Step 3 Remove from heat, mix in the vanilla extract while still warm, and transfer to a large bowl to cool. (Vic says the large bowl will help with folding in your cream later.) Once cool, press cling film to the surface of the custard and chill in the fridge until cold. 

 

Step 4 Once the custard is cool, begin to whip the Whippable Creamy Oat in your stand mixer with the whisk attachment until stiff peaks form. 

 

Step 5 With a large spatula, fold the Whippable Creamy Oat into the custard—now aren’t you glad Vic told you about the large bowl? Once it’s well incorporated, add to a piping bag. (Vic says no specific bag tip is needed here, but the same star tip is a great choice.) 

 

Step 6 With a serrated knife, slice all cream puffs in half and pipe a healthy dollop of custard in between. Top the lids of the choux puffs with some confectioners’ sugar, if that sounds good to you.

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TO OATLYFANS!