Vegan Coconut Cream Puffs

egg-free, dairy-free, but not coconut-free!

When I got the idea of making cream puffs into my head, I thought why not make them vegan? Vegan desserts serve an an extra challenge that make it more exciting! However, I think I will make normal cream puffs in the future, because although these were good, the pastry didn’t puff up as much as I wanted. It seems like there truly isn’t anything that can beat butter.

Butter is a key element in baking, especially in pastries like these, as it creates the flakey layers between dough. Baking with olive oil works most of the time, and coconut oil as well, especially because it’s solid at room temperature. But still, there’s nothing like butter.

I wanted to make these vegan because I wanted to use aquafaba! I didn’t want my first aquafaba recipe to be crepes, because the main ingredient, eggs, is substituted for aquafaba — which is a little terrifying for a first time aquafaba-user. And when I decided to use aquafaba, I thought, why not make the whole recipe vegan? So here we are. Making vegan cream puffs.

Ingredients:

• 1 can coconut milk, chilled for 2 days
• 1 cup plain flour
• 1 tablespoon coconut sugar
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 2 tablespoons coconut oil
• 6 tablespoons aquafaba
• 1/8 teaspoon cream of tartar
• 1 cup almond or oat milk
• 1/2 tsp vanilla (use more to mask the coconut flavor)
• 2/3 cup powdered sugar

Directions:

1. Make sure to chill the coconut cream overnight at least, which helps separate the cream from the rest of the coconut milk. I could have chilled for longer, so I suggest two days in the fridge rather than overnight.
2. For the dough: Preheat the oven to 392°F and line a baking tray with parchment brushed with water. Sift the flour, sugar, salt and baking powder together in a bowl. Over a Dutch oven on a small flame, bring the milk and coconut oil to a bowl. Reduce the heat even more and stir in the flour mixture using a wooden spoon. Take it off the heat immediately.
3. Whisk the aquafaba and cream of tar tar until stiff peaks form.
4. Fold the dough to incorporate the aquafaba, half the mixture at a time.
5. Pipe the dough onto the parchment, then bake 20 minutes, reducing to 350F to bake for an additional 10–15 minutes.
6. While baking, wash and chill the stand mixer bowl and whisk.
7. While pastries are cooling, whip the coconut cream, powdered sugar, and vanilla with a stand mixer and whisk attachment until desired stiffness is reached. Be sure to use the hard part that floats to the top of the can for the coconut cream.
8. When pastries are completely cool, begin filling. You can either slice in half and fill, or score a hole in the bottom and fill with a piping bag. Enjoy!