Being Australian, I grew up knowing and loving lamingtons. And, well, eating them. But not so much making them. In fact I hadn’t made them until a few years ago when I did a kinda sorta tutorial (please excuse the bad photos, it was way back at the beginning of my blogging journey!) in preparation for the first time I reinvented the lamington for Peter Hallsworth’s challenge back in 2010. Since then I’ve made a couple of different versions of the lamington – pumpkin and Nutella so when Peter’s challenge came around this year, I wondered what on earth I could do to top those.
I’m a fan of lamingtons with a jammy centre so I knew I wanted to do something involving jam. And as I was thinking jam and cream, I had this idea that I could totally combine my latest obsession, choux pastry, with a lamington. And that’s how I came up with a lami-choux.
Pretty choux puffs, baked golden brown, filled with a spoonful of jam…
Topped with a dollop of cream…
Sandwiched between the golden choux, dipped in molten chocolate and sprinkled with coconut…
These, my friends, were pretty darned good.
- ½ batch Dorie Greenspan's choux pastry dough
- approximately ½ cup 35 whipping cream, whipped
- your favourite raspberry jam
- approximately 150g semi-sweet chocolate, melted
- sweetened coconut, for sprinkling
- Make the choux according the directions, pipe into puffs. This quantity should make 20 small (bite-sized) puffs.
- Once the puffs are cooled, dip them in the melted chocolate to just cap their tops.
- Sprinkle with coconut and allow to cool.
- Just before serving, slice open the puffs (a serrated knife works best for this, I used a tomato knife).
- In the bottom of each puff, place approximately ½ - 1 teaspoon of the jam, depending on how sweet you want them.
- Pipe the whipped cream on top of the jam and top with the chocolate coated top halves.
- Serve immediately.
I made these for a dinner party we hosted last weekend, despite the fact that I had just made a different version of choux puffs the week before for Neil’s curling bake-off (yes, real people outside the Olympics “do” curling. I don’t get it but apparently it involves lots of good food and drinks, at least at Neil’s club, so I understand that as a draw…).
Now here’s the thing, in the curling club bake-off, my choux puffs did not place. Not 1st, not 2nd, not 3rd. And these were seriously good puffs. SO good that I received this note from someone who had eaten them. Oh well, you can’t win them all, I guess (apparently butter tarts won. Perhaps next year I need to make a butter tart choux. Or a butter tart macaron…). But I think re-invented as lami-choux, these are, indeed, winning. At least in my book. Also, after Sunday night’s dinner party, there were none left. ‘Nuff said!
Follow the reinvention of the lamington 2014 on Twitter – #lamingtons2014 and don’t forget to check out Peter Hallsworth’s lamington reinvention efforts so far this year (hint: they involve clotted cream, Wintergreen Tic Tacs, Pink Grapefruit and Seville oranges, just to name a few!)
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Do you live in Toronto? Want to take a class with me? Check out my recently updated “Classes” page – there’s a class for everyone – macarons, pastry, galettes (1/2 price for kids!) and French desserts!
Love it!
Thought you might!
Tic Tacs come in Wintergreen? OMG.
They do!
I absolutely love these. You have no idea how happy I am to see lamington choux. C’est trop choux!
So glad Peter!
Think I’m in love with your lami-chouxs! Yup…I am 🙂
Thanks Paula!
Well they WERE a tad over-filled…. 😉
😉 Kinda…
I’m jonsin’ for more of these NOW!!! Impossible to eat just one.
And now I’m actually salivating over the possibility of butter tart choux. I know you were just joking, Mardi, but, hmmm- maybe? Butter tart filling, whipped cream and choux pastry- I think you might be on to something. I want the first sample!
Glad you enjoyed!
they look delish!
They were so good!
Next time that I see the post is likely to be about something sweet, I’ll wait until I’ve eaten to read it. These posts are hard to read on an “eat less” day. Love ’em
😉
hi mardi!
i found your blog via mr p’s re-invention of the lamingtons and i must say that i absolutely adore your idea of lami-choux! your photos looks so good, i think i’ll make choux (or windbeutel as we say in german) very soon 🙂