A Journey into Vegan Cream Puffs

I randomly remembered how much I liked cream puffs with pineapple cream filling - I recreated the pineapple filling perfectly (a mixture of Toffuti cream cheese, soy whipped topping, and crushed pineapple)


But was not so successful with the puff part -- the first round, I used a standard cream puff recipe with disasterous results. These were little round rocks, the term 'hockey pucks' came to mind several times.



I did a little more research and found a more promising recipe on Yahoo! answers:
1 cup all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar (or baking powder)
2 tablespoons margarine (such as Spectrum)
equivalent of 4 eggs (2 tablespoon Ener-G Egg Replacer whipped until stiff with 1/3 cup water)
1 cup soy milk

Directions:

Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees. Prepare baking sheet--either parchment paper or a non-stick pan. Prepare egg-replacer. Stir together flour, vegan sugar, salt, cream of tartar. In a sauce pan (non-stick works well), bring the soymilk and margarine to a boil, stirring constantly. Add the flour all at once, and reduce heat to low. Stir constantly until the dough forms a ball that pulls away from the pan and the spoon and is glossy and smooth. Working quickly, remove from heat and add the Ener-G Egg Replacer, about a third at a time, beating well after each addition until the dough is glossy, smooth, and pulls away from the pan.

Shape the puffs as desired--I made mini-puffs about a rounded teaspoon each. Bake at 400 degrees for 10 minutes, then lower heat to 350 for another 10 minutes, then turn off oven and allow to cool, with door slightly cracked for another 20 minutes, then cool completely on wire racks before serving or filling.







The result? Not bad!
Definitely not as light and airy as a 'regular' cream puff, but not totally gross!
Surprisingly 'puffy'!
Stuffed with pineapple cream it was a pretty good stand-in.
Next time I'll use a lighter flour to try to refine it a little more...