almond milk chocolate pudding coconut tarts

Who doesn’t love chocolate pudding? And I don’t mean jello pudding cups … I mean homemade chocolate pudding … richness and sweetness and creaminess and deliciousness all rolled into one spoonful of joy.

How about we toss in a coconut pastry crust … and turn it into a tart? Does that make it even more appealing?

I am unabashedly in love with this combination.

This recipe came on my radar when (surprise surprise) I came upon it on pinterest. The picture I pinned promised me the best chocolate pie recipe ever. Who can resist that?

I clicked to follow the link to the original source, and was introduced to Kelly and her mammy’s chocolate pie.

Who doesn’t love something grandma made?

I fell hook, line and sinker for it … have made it several times over the last two and a half weeks … and tweaked it to what it is today.

The first time I made it … I stuck to the original. Pastry crust and chocolate pudding filling. Rather than top it with toasted meringue … I opted to pipe a little whipped cream. A little added decadence to a very simple recipe.

After that … I thought: I like chocolate and coconut together. Why don’t I made a coconut pastry crust?

Done.

Kelly’s grandma’s recipe evolved to include a dressed up base. I opted to make them both into mini tarts (using muffin pans lined with cupcake liners) and a rectangular tart.

Dee-light-FUL!

Then it was time to fiddle around with the chocolate pudding. I replaced the milk with almond milk. I tossed in a teaspoon of espresso powder, swapped the butter for coconut oil and … bam! I ended up with one of my favourite things.

I love how creamy the pudding is, how crispy the pastry is … and when you put them together …

Happiness in a bite. Or several bites.

I’m gonna tell you … it’s a little messy.

You see, the coconut crust isn’t like regular pastry dough that I roll out, and then shape to fit into my cupcake pans or regular tart pans. This dough doesn’t cover the base and go up the sides, ensuring a perfect little conduit for the chocolate pudding.

No. This coconut crust is more like a shortbread crust, and so it’s a little more difficult to mold as well as traditional pastry dough.

But who cares right?!

I combined all the ingredients and then pressed pieces of the dough into the base of the cupcake pan / tart pan / mini tart pan (I told you … I’ve made these multiple times: multiple baking vessels have been used).

The coconut pastry is then blind baked until it’s crispy. Cooled and then topped with almond milk chocolate pudding.

Crunchy base, creamy centre … top with a dollop of whipped cream …

Perfection in my opinion. You should probably try it … immediately.

almond milk chocolate pudding coconut tarts

ingredients:

almond milk chocolate pudding

2 c. almond milk

2 tbsp cornstarch

2 tbsp flour

1 c. sugar

pinch of salt

1 tsp espresso powder

1/4 c. cocoa powder

3 egg yolks

1 tsp vanilla

2 tbsp coconut oil

Combine the almond milk, cornstarch, flour, sugar, salt, espresso powder, cocoa powder and egg yolks in a medium saucepan.

Cook over medium-low heat, whisking continuously. It’ll take about 10 minutes, be patient, but it’ll thicken nicely (make sure you whisk along the sides of the saucepan so that the custard doesn’t stick to the bottom).

Once it’s just about to bubble, remove the saucepan from heat. Stir in the vanilla and the coconut oil. Once incorporated, pass the custard through a strainer. You want to get all those little bits out so that you end up with the smoothest pudding possible.

Cover with plastic wrap and cool in the fridge.

almond milk chocolate pudding. Done.

coconut pastry dough

1 1/2 c. flour

3/4 c. flaked coconut

3/4 c. brown sugar

1/2 tsp salt

10 tbsp coconut oil (melted if it’s hardened)

Heat your oven to 350 F.

Mix your flour, coconut, brown sugar and salt together.

Add the melted coconut oil. Mix until it comes together (it’ll look like wet sand … not mud, but wet sand).

Press into your tart pan / mini tart pans / cupcake pan.

Bake for 12 minutes. You might think it’s overkill. It’s not. You want a really crunchy tart shell.

Remove from the oven and cool completely on a wire rack.

The hard work is done. Now all you have to do is assemble. Generously top or fill your pastry crust with the chocolate pudding.

Bet you can’t eat just one (mini tart or slice).

choux pastry challenge

I love making choux pastry. It’s the kind of recipe that is so ridiculously simple to make; but it packs such a punch – impressing the socks off of your friends and family.

That’s why we decided it would be the perfect baking crew challenge.

Simple recipe with jaw-dropping results. Win – Win.

I’ve been making choux pastry for the past several months; but I’ve only made eclairs: choux pastry filled with pastry cream (or eggnog pastry cream during the holidays) … so I decided that I wanted to make profiteroles. Little balls of doughy goodness filled with both whipped cream and chocolate chantilly (whipped chocolate).

Doesn’t that sound perfectly delightful?

I thought so.

Until I arrived for our baking crew gathering.

Mother of pearl … was I ever impressed!

Tom & Aimee had decided on making swans. That’s right. Perfect little chocolate choux swans filled with chocolate chantilly.

A showstopper? Heck ya.

Meredith decided to up the ante a little by making a gateau st. honore. This decadent cake is made up of a base layer of puff pastry, ringed with choux pastry piped on the outer edge. The centre is filled with pastry cream, and then more cream puffs are baked and filled with whipped cream, dipped in caramelized sugar and then placed, side by side, on top of the choux pastry ring. A layer of piped whipped cream finishes it off.

Not only did Meredith make the choux pastry. She also went ahead and made the puff pastry.

So impressive.

I loved it.

Cory either couldn’t decide on what he wanted to make … or he really wanted to impress the heck out of all of us. Either way … the result was a plethora of absolutely delicious pastries.

Whipped dijon potatoes with rare beef and chives sandwiched between a little choux pastry bun.

Chocolate caramel variation of a Paris-Brest (a cream puff ring filled with flavoured cream): whipped cream, chocolate, caramel. I’d just like to mention that the caramel was perfectly bitter.

Caramel drizzled profiteroles filled with whipped cream.

Braided strawberry choux wheel with creme patisserie and creme chiboust. Another showstopper.

Ridiculous right?

Why I thought my little chocolate chantilly, whipped cream filled profiteroles were going to impress my friends … I do not know!

People keep asking what we do once we all sit down and start to eat our baked treats. Well … this challenge was a perfect example of the baking crew at its best.

A great choux pastry is light and airy on the inside (it puffs up as it bakes), but has a crust on the outside. Make sense?

Since we all used different recipes, we were able to compare the different results.

Tom & Aimee used the Thomas Keller recipe – which called for them to rest the choux pastry overnight, as well as bake it for 75 minutes … we all agreed they could have used a little longer in the oven. It wasn’t quite crispy enough. But in impressive factor … they knocked it out of the park.  They made chocolate swans!  Who doesn’t love a chocolate swan?

Cory had a similar issue with all his choux. I thought his was the best flavour, but it didn’t puff up quite as much as he would have liked. Since we had so many to choose from … I’d have to say that the braided strawberry choux wheel was addictively delightful. Think of it as an updated strawberry shortcake … only 100 million times better. It was THAT good.

Meredith’s gateau st. honore had a great texture and flavour: add to that rich pastry cream and perfectly flakey puff pastry … you’ve got yourself a real winner.

I’d tell you more about my profiteroles … but really … they were a little ho hum. I found after tasting the others choux that mine was a little too eggy. I can claim to having the best exterior crunch and puffy interior … as proclaimed by the baking crew, not my own huge ego ;0)

suguared doughnuts

The baking crew is back! And we’re on a mission … of sorts. We’ve decided to bake our way through Thomas Keller & Sebastien Rouxel’s Bouchon Bakery cookbook.

One recipe at a time.

We started with Keller’s sugared doughnuts recipe.

Mother of pearl!

Delicious. They are delicious. A brioche dough … shaped into doughnuts … fried in some oil … and then covered in sugar. And filled with lemon curd. Or filled with whipped chocolate. Or topped with freshly flaked coconut.

For realz. Awesome eh?

Ok so this recipe excites me because … well if you remember the last time I tried making brioche (with the baking crew) … it was not as successful as I had hoped it would be.

But this time … this time I rocked it! I totally got it. Even with a slight typo in the recipe.

I got it.

And the result was … PERRRRR-FECT.

Are you excited? Are you feeling an urge to make homemade doughnuts? (believe me … these doughnuts will make you a lover of fried dough)

Meredith, Cory and I were so excited to make them that we fried them up … OUTSIDE. in -20 temperatures. In the snow. With a windchill.

And … it was fun. Especially when we all popped our first doughnuts into our mouths … freshly rolled in sugar and filled with cream.

The best baking challenge yet (the entire baking crew agree).

A couple of things to take into consideration when working with this recipe:

You have to allow for the dough to rise in your refrigerator overnight. So start this before going to bed.

Secondly …you should probably get yourself a scale. I’ll post the recipe in weights and measures (since that’s how they write it in the book); however I used my scale when following the recipe.

Other than those two points … this is a pretty standard recipe. And if you’re new to bread making / are apprehensive about making dough … give this one a try. I promise it’ll work. Believe me. I know how you feel. Been there. Done that.

So pull out your instant yeast and flour and get busy. You won’t regret trying this recipe out.

Thomas Keller’s sugared doughnut recipe
ingredients:
518g / 3 1/2 c. + 3 tbsp flour
10g / 1 tbsp instant yeast
74g / 1/4 c. + 2 tbsp sugar
9g / 1 tbsp salt
212g / 3/4 c. + 1 1/2 tbsp milk, warmed to 75 F
111g / 2 eggs
9g / 1 1/2 tsp vanilla paste
57g / 2 ounces butter, room temperature, cut into small cubes

canola oil for frying
sugar to coat the doughnuts
lemon curd to fill doughnuts

To make the dough. Place the flour and yeast in the bowl of your stand-mixer fitted with your dough hook. Mix for about 15 seconds just so that the yeast gets evenly distributed.

Add the remaining ingredients, except the butter, and mix on low speed for 4 minutes.

Now, continue to knead the dough for a further 30 minutes (your stand-mixer will likely feel warm, it should be fine). Add the small cubes of butter, one piece at a time, allowing it to be incorporated into the dough before adding more butter.

After 30 minutes (all the butter should have been added at this point), turn off the stand-mixer, scrape down the sides and the bottom of the bowl, push the dough off the hook: resume kneading on a low speed for another 5 minutes.

Run a spatula over the sides and bottom of the bowl and release the dough onto a very lightly floured surface. You only need enough flour to prevent the dough from sticking.

With your hands, gently pat the dough into a rectangular shape.

As you can see from the picture above, you’ll want to stretch the left side of the dough out and then fold it over two-thirds of the dough (as though you are folding a letter into an envelope). Once the left side is folded in, repeat the process with the right side. Once that is done, do the exact same thing, working from the bottom and then the top.

That’s it.

Flip the dough over, seam side down and place it in your bowl (that you’ve sprayed with non-stick spray). Cover with plastic wrap and allow to rise for 1 hour at room temperature.

1 hour later … use a spatula to release the sides and bottom of the dough from the bowl and turn it out onto a lightly floured surface.

You’ll do the same thing as you did the first time you stretched and folded the dough; only this time, you’ll cover the dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight.

To roll out the dough & shape the doughnuts.

On a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough, flipping and fluffing it (basically you just want to roll the dough, take your hand and gently lift the dough from the work surface, then turn the dough clockwise, repeat) into an 11-inch round.

Transfer to a parchment lined cookie sheet and refrigerate for 30 minutes (or freeze for 10 minutes); long enough to allow the dough to be more manageable.

Line another sheet with parchment paper, spray the parchment with non-stick spray (this is an important step), set aside.

Remove the dough from the fridge, and using your 3-inch round cookie cutters, cut out your doughnuts. The recipe says that you should get 8 rounds … I got 16 rounds.

If you just want to fill your doughnuts with pastry cream, whipped chocolate, lemon curd, etc. leave them as is. However, if you want to make doughnuts with holes; grab a small round cookie cutter and cut the centre out of your 3-inch rounds.

Save the mini rounds. They make pretty fabulous mini doughnuts.

To proof the doughnuts. Cover the baking sheet with a plastic tub or a cardboard box and proof for 60 to 90 minutes. The doughnuts will double in size; or when the dough is gently pressed, a small imprint will remain.

To fry the doughnuts. If you’re like me … you go over to a friend’s place and he sets up an awesome fryer outside so that his apartment doesn’t stink up (thank you Cory!). Or if you’re like Tom and Aimee you can use an indoor deep-fryer … both of these things make frying the doughnuts pretty simple.

If you don’t have one of these options … you can pour 3 inches of oil into a Dutch oven or a heavy stockpot; the oil shouldn’t come up more than 1/3rd of the way up the sides of the pot, but it needs to be deep enough to allow the doughnuts to fry freely.

Heat the oil to 350 F.

Set a wire cooling rack over a cookie sheet, pour the sugar into a shallow bowl.

If you have a set of chopsticks you should pull them out for this part. They work perfectly for flipping the doughnuts in the oil and pulling them out of the oil. They are long enough that you keep your hands and fingers away from the oil while still controlling flipping the doughnuts.

Gently drop as many doughnuts as can fit into the pot. Fry on the second side for 45 seconds. Flip them over again and fry for a further 45 seconds, or until they are a rich golden brown.

Transfer the batch to the wire rack, and continue frying more of your doughnuts.

You want to roll them in the sugar while they are still warm (don’t worry, they cool enough to handle pretty quickly). If filling – allow the doughnuts to cool completely before using a piping bag and filling the doughnuts with your favourite flavours.

That’s it.

All done. As you can see … it’s not an overly difficult or tricky recipe. You might be nervous to try it for any number of reasons: making dough, frying in oil, etc. But really, you should give it a try. It will make you a believer in doughnuts.

As you can see … the entire baking crew had a great time (and were pretty darn successful) in making a batch of these …