Italian Cream Puffs with Ricotta and Vanilla Cream | Bignè Farciti con Crema di Ricotta e Vaniglia
Bignè farciti are the pastry of every Italian bar counter: a hollow choux shell baked until the walls are dry, and a filling of ricotta scented with vanilla. What separates a good one from a damp one is neither the pastry nor the cream. It is the hole, where you put it, and when.
This version is filled from underneath, through a single small opening, and is never cut open.
Yield: 18 to 20 bignè, 4 to 6 servings. Prep: 40 minutes. Cook: 35 minutes. Rest: overnight for the ricotta, 1 hour for the shells. Difficulty: intermediate. Course: dolce. Region: central and southern Italy.
The Story
Choux paste is the one French technique Italian pastry absorbed so completely that it stopped calling it French. The paste is usually traced to the cooks who followed Caterina de Medici north in the sixteenth century, and to a pastry cook remembered as Popelini who dried a flour and butter paste in a pan before baking it. Whether that account is exact or simply convenient, the technique came back across the Alps and settled in. The Italian name comes from beignet, the French word for a fritter, which is why bignè in Rome still means something fried, sold by the tray for the feast of San Giuseppe on the nineteenth of March, while bignè in a Neapolitan or Sicilian pastry shop means a baked hollow shell waiting for a filling.
The filling is where the pastry stops being French. Northern Europe fills choux with crema pasticcera, a cooked custard of yolk, milk and starch. Central and southern Italy had something better and cheaper on hand every morning: ricotta, the curd a dairy recovers from the whey left over from cheesemaking, sweet on the day it is made and finished a few days later. In Lazio and Sicily it is sheep milk ricotta, with a faint animal tang and a drier grain. In Campania it is cow milk, softer and milder. A pastry cook with a bowl of it and a vanilla bean does not need to cook a custard at all.
That economy also explains why Italian pastry shops keep their bignè empty. Walk into a pasticceria in Naples or Palermo at seven in the morning and the shells sit in rows, pale gold and hollow, and nothing is filled until somebody asks for it. The reason is moisture. A choux shell is a dried crust holding air, and the filling is wet, so from the moment the two meet the shell starts losing the crack that makes it worth eating. Every serious version of this pastry is built around delaying that moment, and around opening the shell as little as possible when it comes.
Ingredients
Quantities for 18 to 20 bignè of about 1 1/2 inches (4 cm) across. Weigh the flour and the egg if you can, since choux is one of the few pastes where measuring by volume genuinely costs you.
For the choux shells
Water, 1/2 cup (120 ml)
Whole milk, 1/2 cup (120 ml)
Unsalted butter, cubed, 3 1/2 oz (100 g)
Fine sea salt, 1/4 tsp (1.5 g)
Granulated sugar, 1 tsp (4 g)
All purpose flour, sifted, 4 1/4 oz (120 g)
Whole eggs, beaten, 7 oz (200 g), about 4 large, plus a little more if needed
For the ricotta and vanilla filling
Fresh sheep milk or cow milk ricotta, 1 lb 2 oz (500 g)
Powdered sugar, sifted, 3 1/2 oz (100 g)
Vanilla bean, split and scraped, 1
Heavy cream, very cold, 1/3 cup (80 ml)
Fine sea salt, 1 small pinch
For finishing
Powdered sugar, for dusting
Dark chocolate, 70 percent, 1 oz (30 g), shaved, optional
Preparation
Set the ricotta to drain the night before
Line a fine sieve with two layers of cheesecloth, set it over a bowl, tip in the ricotta and cover it. Leave it in the refrigerator overnight. Loose whey is what turns a filled bignè soft inside an hour. You should find 2 to 3 tablespoons of liquid in the bowl by morning. Discard it.
Bring the liquid and butter to a rolling boil
Put the water, milk, butter, salt and sugar in a heavy saucepan and bring them to a proper rolling boil, not a simmer. The butter has to be fully melted before the water begins to leave, or the ratio shifts and the paste bakes dry. Off the heat, add all the flour at once and beat it in hard with a wooden spoon until no dry flour is left.
Dry the paste until it films the pan
Return the pan to medium heat and work the paste against the base for 2 to 3 minutes. It will gather into a smooth ball and leave a thin white film on the pan base. That film is the signal to stop. Tip it into a bowl, spread it up the sides and let it cool for 5 minutes.
Beat in the egg until the paste falls in a slow V
Add the beaten egg to the warm paste in four or five additions, working each one in completely before the next. The paste looks split after every addition and comes back together, which is normal. Stop when a spoonful lifted from the bowl hangs, stretches and falls away in a slow thick V. A paste that runs off the spoon in a sheet has gone too far and cannot be brought back.
Pipe and bake the shells
Pipe domes of about 1 1/2 inches (4 cm) onto a lined tray, spaced generously, and flatten any peak with a wet fingertip. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 12 minutes to get the lift, then drop the oven to 350°F (175°C) for 18 to 20 minutes more to dry the walls. They are done when they are deep gold all over, base included.
Cool the shells dry and leave them closed
Turn the oven off, open the door a hand width and leave the shells inside for 10 minutes, then move them to a rack and let them cool completely, at least 45 minutes. Do not pierce them now. The crust is porous enough to release its own steam, and a hole made while the inside is still hot turns into an inlet as the shell cools.
Whip the filling
Pass the drained ricotta through a fine sieve into a cold bowl, add the powdered sugar, the scraped vanilla and the pinch of salt, and work it smooth with a spatula. Whip the cold cream to soft peaks separately and fold it in in two additions. The filling should be firm enough to hold a shape on the spatula and still soft enough to travel through a narrow tip.
Pierce the base and fill
Fit a piping bag with a long narrow tip, 1/4 inch (6 mm) or less. Turn a shell over, push the tip straight into the base so it makes its own hole, and go in about halfway. Squeeze slowly. Hold the shell between two fingers of the other hand and stop the moment it stops feeling hollow. Stand each one upright as you finish it, and fill only what you are about to serve.
Plating
Bignè are counter pastry and they look wrong on a composed plate. Serve them piled on a flat dish or a paper lined tray, hole side down, three or four per person. Dust them with powdered sugar through a small sieve held high, and do it at the last second: the sugar pulls moisture out of the shell and goes wet and patchy within ten minutes.
Serve at cool room temperature rather than straight from the refrigerator. A cold filling tastes of very little, and vanilla in particular disappears below about 50°F (10°C), so twenty minutes out is enough. If you want the chocolate, shave it over at the table with a peeler so it stays in curls instead of melting into the sugar.
Professional Technique
Everything here turns on how the shell is opened. A baked bignè is a sealed cavity with a wall perhaps 1/8 inch (3 mm) thick, and that wall is the only thing keeping the filling from the air. Cut it across the middle and you lose both functions at once: the cut edge sheds crumb, the open face dries, the lid slides off the cream, and the entire surface of the filling is exposed. One hole in the base leaves the shell structurally whole and the cream completely enclosed.
The timing of that hole matters as much as its position. A shell out of the oven is full of steam under slight pressure, and it needs to lose it through the crust itself, which is porous enough to let it pass slowly. Pierce it hot and you hand the steam a short cut, which sounds helpful and is not: as the shell cools the air inside contracts, and the hole that let steam out now draws kitchen air back in, straight onto the inner wall, which softens in a ring around the opening. Make the hole cold, immediately before filling, and the shell stands open to the air for two seconds instead of an hour.
Judging fullness is done by hand, not by eye. An empty shell weighs almost nothing, so the change is unmistakable: at roughly two thirds full it stops feeling hollow and settles into the fingers. At the same moment the back pressure on the bag rises, because the cream has nowhere left to go. Stop there. The last warning, if you miss the first two, is a bead of cream at the rim of the hole. Push past it and you will feel the wall stretch and then hear it split.
Texture and Moisture Control
Two textures have to coexist that do not want to: a dry brittle wall and a wet cold cream. Water moves from the filling into the crust from the first minute and nothing stops it completely, so the work is in slowing it. Draining overnight takes out the free whey, and the whipped cream folded into the filling raises the fat fraction, which matters because fat travels through a starch crust far more slowly than water does.
Temperature is the second control. Fill only shells that are completely cool. A cold filling put into a shell that is even slightly warm condenses moisture on the inside of the wall, and the pastry is soaked from within before it reaches the table. Once filled, a bignè has two to three hours at cool room temperature, and about the same in the refrigerator, before the crack is gone for good.
The crust has to be dry enough to start with. A shell pulled pale at 25 minutes instead of 32 looks finished and still holds enough internal moisture to go soft on its own, filled or not. Bake until the base is as coloured as the top, and keep the cooled shells well away from any steam in the kitchen.
Professional Mise en Place
Everything except the filling of the shells can be done the day before, which is how a pastry shop runs it. Filling is the last thing that happens before service.
Equipment and tools
Heavy saucepan and a sturdy wooden spoon
Piping bag with a plain 1/2 inch (12 mm) tip for the shells
Second bag with a long narrow filling tip, 1/4 inch (6 mm) or less
Fine sieve and cheesecloth for the ricotta
Small sieve for the sugar and an oven thermometer
Prepared ahead
Ricotta draining in the refrigerator, overnight
Shells baked and cooled, up to 2 days ahead in an airtight tin
Filling whipped, up to 1 day ahead, kept covered and cold
Vanilla scraped and stirred into the sugar
Chocolate shaved and held cold, if you are using it
Service setup
Shells at room temperature, tin kept closed until the last moment
Filling bag loaded and resting in a cold container, not on ice
Serving dish, sugar sieve and a small tray for the filled pastries
Filling done to order in batches of six or eight
A rack for any shell that turns out heavy or soft, kept aside
Chef Tips
Buy ricotta loose from a counter rather than sealed in a tub with stabilisers. Tub ricotta will not drain, because the gums holding its water are doing their job, and it will not taste of milk either. Taste before you buy: sweet, no sourness behind it.
Weigh the egg instead of counting it. Large eggs vary by a third, and 7 oz (200 g) beaten is the target. Hold back the last half ounce and add it only if the paste is too stiff to fall in a V.
Bake one tray at a time on the middle shelf. Choux wants the whole oven; two trays compete for the same heat, so the lower one stays pale and collapses as it cools.
If a shell feels heavy in the hand, open it and look at the cavity. A thick soft base means the paste went in too wet, and the hole method will not work there. Eat those and fill the light ones.
Common Mistakes
Cutting the bignè in half to fill it. Quicker, and wrong in every other respect: the cut sheds crumb, the lid slides on the cream, and the whole filling surface meets the air. What was crisp at plating is damp by the second bite.
Piercing the shells hot from the oven. The crust vents its own steam. An early hole becomes an inlet as the shell cools and contracts, and the inner wall softens in a ring around it long before any cream arrives.
Filling with ricotta that has not been drained. The free whey separates inside the shell within the hour and pools at the bottom, and no amount of sugar or whipped cream compensates.
Adding the egg to a paste that is still hot. The egg sets on contact and the paste turns grainy and loose, which costs you the lift. Five minutes of cooling, spread up the sides of the bowl, is enough.
Opening the oven door in the first 15 minutes. The shells are still rising on steam alone and the structure has not set. Cool air at that stage collapses them, and a collapsed bignè has no cavity to fill.
Wine Pairing
Moscato d'Asti DOCG: The default pairing in Italy for anything filled with sweetened dairy, and it earns the place. Low alcohol around 5 percent and a light spontaneous fizz lift the fat of the ricotta and cream off the palate instead of layering more weight onto it, and the grapey peach and orange blossom aromatics sit beside vanilla without competing. Its sweetness is moderate enough to stay level with a filling that is only lightly sugared.
Malvasia delle Lipari DOC: From the Aeolian islands, made from grapes dried in the sun, so the sweetness arrives with dried apricot, candied citrus peel and a resinous herbal edge. What makes it work here is acidity: it is high enough to cut through fresh dairy rather than sit on top of it. The oxidative note it picks up during drying finds the vanilla directly and extends it.
Recioto di Soave DOCG: Garganega dried on racks through the winter, which concentrates sugar while leaving the variety's firm acidity intact. That combination handles the faint tang of sheep milk ricotta better than any richer sweet wine would, and the almond and candied lemon character on the finish runs alongside the egg in the choux shell rather than over it.
Vin Santo del Chianti Classico DOC: The choice for the shell more than the filling. Long oxidative ageing in small barrels gives it dried fig, walnut and caramel notes that pick up the toasted eggy flavour of well baked choux. Serve it cool and in a small glass, because its alcohol and its concentration are both considerably higher than the others here.
Storage & Reheating
Store the parts, never the finished pastry. Empty shells keep in an airtight tin at room temperature for 2 days and freeze well for up to 1 month. Bring either back in a 300°F (150°C) oven for 4 to 5 minutes, from frozen if need be, then cool completely before filling.
The filling keeps covered in the refrigerator for 2 days. Stir it once before use, since a little liquid separates as it sits. Do not freeze it: ricotta goes grainy on thawing and the cream splits out of it.
Filled bignè are at their best within two or three hours and do not improve overnight. If you have leftovers, refrigerate them in a single layer and eat them the next morning, accepting that the shell is now soft. Never reheat a filled bignè: the ricotta warms and weeps before the crust picks up any crispness.
Nutrition
Per serving, based on 5 servings of 4 bignè each:
Calories: 480 kcal
Total Fat: 31 g
Saturated Fat: 18 g
Trans Fat: 0.5 g
Unsaturated Fat: 11 g
Cholesterol: 215 mg
Sodium: 250 mg
Total Carbohydrates: 37 g
Fiber: 1 g
Total Sugars: 22 g
Added Sugars: 18 g
Protein: 15 g
Lactose: 5 g
Principal micronutrients: calcium, phosphorus, vitamin A, vitamin B12, riboflavin, selenium
These figures are estimates. They shift most with the ricotta, since sheep milk is noticeably richer than cow milk, and with how much of the whey you drained off.
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