Winnie the Pooh Mango Choux Pastries in Macaron Teacups

Mangoes are still cheap and plentiful at the moment so I hope you aren't tired of seeing more mango creations from me 🤣. Presenting my mixed genre creation that I was working on while we aren't allowed to bake for sale. Pooh bear mango choux pastries in macaron teacups, topped off with strawberry meringue Piglets!!

Here is another look of them without the distractions in front.

You may refer to my previous post for detailed recipe for the Piglet meringues.

The focus of this blog post will be for the new mango filling recipe that is yummy both frozen in freezer and chilled in the fridge. Up to you which way you want to serve it.

You may refer to this post for the detailed recipe of choux pastry batter with craquelin. I used a 3cm craquelin on 2.5cm piped batter for Pooh's head. I used a pinch of yellow powder food colouring and some white gel food colouring for both craquelin and batter.

Highly recommended to use perforated mat if you have it! Baking time is about 45-50min to thoroughly bake dry the cases. Temperature depends on your oven as each one behaves differently. As a rule of thumb, start off high but drop the temperature later on. This is to ensure nice puffy cases but minimal browning. 

I piped the ears and hands after baking the heads just to have a better gauge of the size of the small parts that need to be piped. You may pipe these on parchment lined baking trays. These just need to bake for about 15 min

Freshly baked ears and hands! Oops some pieces got blown away by the fan in my kitchen 😂

When choux cases are baked until dry, they can be stored for a week at room temperature while staying crisp, much like cookies. So take your time to dry out the cases if you like crisp pastries. Sometimes this can take up to an hour of leaving the cases in the oven.

You may refer to this post on how to make the teacup macarons. I just decorated it in a way to suit the Pooh theme.

Macaron teacups decorated and assembled with royal icing. 

I was cute overloaded by this sight even though it was still works-in-progress! The ears can simply be inserted into the choux cases but the hands need to be glued on using some royal icing. Do use a zester to grind off a little bit of the hands so that it fits nicely on the surface of the head.

I am a big fan of strong but balanced flavours without being too sweet in desserts. The lightened mango pastry cream is one of them. I inject fruity flavours by using a combination of cooked puree and chopped fresh fruit pieces. Do adjust the amount of sugar according to taste and sweetness level of the mangoes you are using. You may use more or less whipping cream as you wish.

Recipe for lightened mango pastry cream
Ingredients:
150 mango puree, strained
50g fresh milk (or coconut milk)
1tsp vanilla extract
2 egg yolks
10g sugar
A pinch of salt
20g cornflour
18g unsalted butter
80g dairy or non-dairy (or a mix) whipping cream
1 mango, cut into small pieces

Steps :
1. Place puree, milk and vanilla in a small saucepan and heat on medium low heat until steaming but not boiling.

2. In the mean time, sift cornflour into a heavy mixing bowl. Add sugar and salt and whisk together. Add egg yolks and whisk until a paste is formed.

3. While whisking the egg yolk mixture continuously, slowly pour in hot puree /milk mixture in a thin stream. Pour the mixture back into saucepan.

4. Heat saucepan over medium low heat while whisking continously. Once the mixture starts to thicken, remove from heat and continue whisking until smooth. Return to heat and continue to whisk and cook until desired consistency.  Some people prefer runnier filling, some prefer firmer. Remove from heat and add butter into the pastry cream. Whisk until butter is combined into the mixture.

5. Sieve the pastry cream into a bowl and press cling wrap onto the surface. Chill in fridge until cool, at least an hour.

6. Whip whipping cream until firm peaks. If using full dairy, be careful not to overwhip.

7. Take the pastry cream out from fridge and whip with spatula to loosen it a little. Add a little at a time to the whipped cream and fold it in. Add chopped mangoes and fold it in.

If you prefer the "ice-cream" version, freeze the lightened pastry cream in a thin layer in a container or lined baking tray. This is to ensure the cream freezes quickly and does not turn icy too much. You can also chill the cream in fridge until ready to fill. Always fill the cases just before consuming to enjoy the crisp cases with cold and yummy filling.

Folding in the pastry cream and chopped mangoes. 

Here is another look of the cute Poohs!

My kids love the ice-cream version so much they have been having it on consecutive days for a few days!

With love,
Phay Shing