Vanilla choux à la crème

I was invited to attend an event in Paris last Sunday, and I decided to prepare one of my favourite gluten free desserts for the occasion: vanilla choux à la crème topped with raspberries and toasted hazelnuts.

For the vanilla custard recipe, I paid homage to one of the greatest Italian pastry chefs, Luca Montersino, whom I have the pleasure and the honour of working on a gluten free project.

Luca has been a pioneer in gluten free, he has been experimenting it for years and years with talent and passion. His vanilla custard is one of the best that I have tasted.

Hope you will enjoy it as much as I and the other guests did.

STEP 1

Separate the egg yolk from the white and place them in a large bowl.

Add the caster sugar and start to mix them with a whisk until they blend together.

Sieve both the corn and rice starches and add them to the mix.

Continue to whisk vigorously.

Cut the vanilla bean in two halves and put the seeds in the mix. Continue to whisk.

STEP 2

Take a large pot, pour the milk, the cream, add the vanilla bean that you have previously cut in two parts and start to cook over low heat.

Once the milk is about to simmer (it doesn’t have to boil), add the mix very slowly, and continue to whisk gently.

It is very important to keep whisking until the the mix turns a custard-like consistency. Once it is done, turn the heat off and pour the custard in a cold recipient. Have it cool down and then place it in the fridge.

Personally I recommend to prepare the custard one day in advance – in the fridge it will cool down, rest a little while and become even more delicious the day after.

For the choux, I had little time and my kitchen is not so well equipped, so I went straight with those by Alimenta 2000, an Italian gluten free brand that makes fantastic gluten free products combining Italian traditional pastry know-how and innovation.

The day after I put the custard in the choux and got prepared for the icing.

Take a small pot, add water and bring it to boil.

Sieve 100 gr of icing sugar and add two table spoons of hot water.

Mix it until the sugar has completely melted. If it feels too liquid add some extra sugar until the icing gets the consistency that you wish.

Squeeze a few drops of lemon. Mix it gently.

Decorating to me is always the fun part of a each recipe that I make: this time I decided to have some white icing topped with fresh raspberries, and for the other choux I used some food colouring: you need just one – two drops.

I went for pink and green topped with toasted hazelnuts we collected from my aunt Rachele’s garden in Sorrento, Italy.

Enjoy!