Lulù Messinesi, pastries filled with whipped cream made from choux pastry, the same dough used to make choux buns (bignè), zeppole, Sfince di San Giuseppe (St. Joseph’s fritters), churros, Paris-Brest and many other classics… Lulù Messinesi are Sicilian sweets that are very simple and belong to Sicilian cuisine and traditional grandmother recipes that we love the most. The Lulù Messinesi recipe is simple and brings back memories of those classic pastry-shop treats we loved as children, like the choux-and-cream swan. I filled them with a simple Chantilly cream, but if you want them even better I recommend preparing the “Lulù cream,” which is essentially a diplomat cream, that is, pastry cream with added whipped cream. Let’s go to the kitchen and discover the Lulù Messinesi recipe together, but before we start cooking, remember that if you want to stay up to date with all my recipes, you can follow my Facebook page (here) and my Instagram profile (here).

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Difficulty: Medium
Cost: Very inexpensive
Preparation time: 20 Minutes
Portions: 8 pieces
Cooking methods: Oven
Cuisine: Italian
Seasonality: All seasons

Ingredients

2/3 cup water
1 cup 00 flour (Italian type 00)
3 tbsp unsalted butter
3 eggs (medium)
1 pinch salt
1 2/3 cup heavy cream (for whipping)
3/4 cup sweetened non-dairy whipping cream (vegetable-based)
1 packet vanillin (or 1 teaspoon vanilla extract)
1/3 cup powdered sugar

Tools

Pot
Bowl
Whisks
Molds for baba
Oven
Piping bag

Preparation of Lulù Messinesi

Let’s prepare the choux pastry.
Combine the water and butter in a pot, bring just to a simmer and add the flour all at once along with the salt. Cook and stir until you obtain a smooth, homogeneous mixture that will start to pull away from the pot (if you are not using a nonstick pot, a light film may form on the surface—this is normal).
Transfer the mixture to a bowl and fold it to help it cool. Add the eggs one at a time, incorporating each completely before adding the next. Use a whisk or wooden spoon to help.
My dough took three eggs, but depending on the flour you might need to add a little more egg. At the end you should have a well-supported cream that is not runny.
Fill a piping bag with this mixture.
Butter the baba molds and fill them to just under 1/3 full.
Bake in a conventional oven preheated to 392°F (200°C) for about 20 minutes—never, ever open the oven for any reason! (Opening the oven would release steam and create a vacuum that would deflate the bases, especially the part in contact with the mold, which remains wetter than the outer part).
After this time, keeping the oven door closed, continue baking at 356°F (180°C) for another 30 minutes. Lower to 302°F (150°C) for the last 10 minutes and then turn the oven off, leaving the pastries to dry out in the switched-off oven.
The bases for the Lulù are ready; remove them from the oven and let them cool completely.
Gather the cold cream in a chilled bowl, add the powdered sugar and the vanilla extract and begin to whip. Use both types of cream to obtain a more stable filling. Fill a piping bag with the whipped cream, make holes in the base of each Lulù, reserving the “cap,” fill with the cream and close them back up. Generously dust with powdered sugar and our Lulù are ready.
I recommend letting them rest in the refrigerator for a few hours before serving; the choux pastry will soften and become one with the filling.