Chef Danilo Pamintuan
Piazza de Nardi
This stunning Italian dessert is similar to a cream puff, and packed with flavour.
Ingredients
Choux Paste
2 cups water,
1 cup melted butter – boil
1 1/2 cups flour
pinch of salt
1 Tbs sugar
24 eggs
Vanilla Mousse
1 L whipping cream
10 egg yolks
2 eggs
1 cup sugar
10 gelatin sheets
Method
Choux Paste
- Combine water, butter, sugar and a pinch of salt into a 8 L sauce pan, and bring to boil.
- While mixture begins to boil, add the flour all at once. Stir until mixture is dry and begins to crumble.
- Pour batter into a mixing bowl.
- With a flat beater set on a low speed, add all the eggs, one at a time.
- Keep mixing until batter cools down.
- Line baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Pipe golf-sized balls onto the parchment paper.
- Bake at 350°F for 45 mins. Do not open the oven to check on them, until time expires.
- Allow to cool before filling.
Filling
- Beat egg yolks, whole eggs and sugar together until fluffy.
- Beat whipping cream until semi-whipped, and place aside.
- Soak the gelatin sheets in cold water, until pliable, and drain water off.
- Melt the gelatin on a double boiler.
- Fold the egg mixture and whipped cream together, mixing well.
- Add a small amount of mixture to the melted gelatin folding until fully incorporated.
- Add the remainder of the egg and cream mixture, folding well.
Assembly
- Pipe filling into the bottom of the bigné, or slice bigné in half and spoon filling between the layers.
- To decorate, drizzle or dip in melted chocolate. Dust with icing sugar.
Yields approx 20 bigne