London’s pastry pros are larging it: supersized profiteroles are on a roll across the capital. Now that everyone’s given up that January nonsense, it’s time to get stuck into chocolate cream puffs as big as your hand and giant choux buns oozing with ice cream.
Start at Maitre Choux: its cult bakeries in Soho and Kensington do a roaring trade in their satsuma-sized choux buns — which are, inevitably, also a hit on Instagram. Caramel and blackberry cheesecake is an innovative twist, though the bestseller is humble vanilla, which is made using pods imported from a tiny farm in Tahiti. Co-founder Jeremie Vaislic insists it’s the best vanilla he’s ever tasted, and the bun’s appeal lies in its simplicity: you can take it away and eat it with your hands, like a doughnut.
At street food market Kerb, Le Choux does a roaring trade in its vanilla-filled buns drizzled in salted caramel (also on sale at Fortnum & Mason and Selfridges). Michelin-starred Sabor in Mayfair serves three enormous profiteroles for dessert, and Quo Vadis in Soho has dedicated a whole section of the pudding menu to its towering pile of creamy, feathery choux.
Kerridge’s Bar & Grill near Embankment has a single chestnut profiterole with salted coffee caramel poured on top. It’s a delicate balance of sweet and savoury — its pastry chef, Adam Degg, says the chestnuts are roasted on the rotisserie first, which gives them a traditional roasted chestnut flavour, and when it comes to size “the bigger the better”.
Elsewhere, Carousel in Marylebone has an unusual profiterole dessert with seasonal ginger and rhubarb sorbet, served with custard and oats, while Soho’s Chin Chin Ice Cream does choux bun sandwiches filled to bursting with ice cream — flavours include raspberry coulis and burnt butter caramel.
Finally, choux pastry fans are salivating at the prospect of Parisian restaurant Big Mamma opening in Shoreditch this month. The star of the show will be a profiterole Napoletana, a single choux puff filled with vanilla gelato and caramelised pecan nuts, covered with a warm, dark chocolate sauce.
