Today is my aunt's birthday. We went out for lunch to a place that she'd been to before and said they did amazing profiteroles. When we went to order dessert, they'd sold out! She wasn't too happy about this so I came home and decided to give them a bash. I'd never made profiteroles before and the first attempt today failed as I didn't have enough flour, decided to wing it and found out the hard way that choux pastry can't be done in the haphazard way I usually bake. This actually requires measuring and careful following of the recipe. If you do that, it's actually really easy (not on the biceps though! You'd have guns like a superhero if you did it every day) and doesn't take too long. A relaxing afternoon bake for a rainy day!
Ingredients
120g plain flour
Pinch of salt
200ml cold water
75g butter
1 tbsp caster sugar
4 eggs, beaten
Method
1. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celsius.
2. Put the water, sugar and butter in a pan over a low heat until the butter is melted.
3. Turn up the heat to a boil then once boiling, turn off the heat and tip in the flour and salt.
4. Beat like your life depends on it until its a smooth paste which comes away from the sides of the pan in a ball.
5. Leave the dough to cool a bit.
6. When it's cooled a bit, beat in a little of the egg at a time. You'll need about 4 but stop when it's a smooth, glossy, pipeable paste. Don't keep adding to use it up as you'll get a mixture that's too runny and doesn't hold its shape in the oven.
7. Scoop into a piping bag with a round nozzle (or a food bag with the corner snipped off if like me you don't have a piping bag and nozzle to hand just accept the fact that you won't get symmetrical, perfect little choux buns).
8. Pipe into little balls in rows on baking trays lined with parchment and stuck down with tiny blobs of the mixture. This is the kind of consistency you want to end up with after the eggs are beaten in.
9. Dip your finger in cold water and flatten any 'nipples' on them before baking them.
10. Bake for about 30 minutes until risen and golden. They expand a LOT!
11. Stab each one's bottom with a skewer to release some air and put them back into the oven, hole side up for 5 minutes.
12. Allow to cool completely on a wire tray.
Tips
Don't pipe them too close together as they expand a lot when cooked! I didn't realise just how much they grew!
Put a pan of water in the bottom of the oven to create more steam and give them extra puffiness.
Pipe in single squeezes. Don't go back to a blob and add more to it to make it bigger as it won't rise up in a ball shape and you'll get odd-looking random shaped balls.
Don't open the oven while they're cooking as they'll deflate.
Cook them until they're a dark gold. If they're underdone when you open the oven they'll deflate so be patient and let them go slightly darker than you think you should.
Make sure they're filled with cream! If you don't squeeze hard enough you'll get a measly amount coming out of your bag into them and that's no use to anyone... load them up! They should feel heavy compared to the unfilled ones.
I filled mine with a big pot of cream (about 600ml I think), whipped up with the zest of an orange. You just pipe it into the buns when they're completely cool (you do need a small nozzle for this though).
For the chocolate sauce, I melted 200g dark chocolate in a bain marie (heatproof bowl over simmering water) and added in half a tub of double cream (about 150ml). I just mixed it until smooth and dunked the filled profiteroles into it. If you weren't adding caramel sauce too, some Cointreau would be good so you could have chocolate orange ones. Or even melt in a chocolate orange instead of the dark chocolate which would make it reeeeally yummy.
I drizzled over some of the sauce I'd made for the chocolate and chestnut pavlova as I still had some of that left. I just added some sea salt to it to give it a hint of saltiness to cut through the sweetness. To make it I melted100g caster sugar with 4 tbsp water together then brought it to a boil. Don't stir the mixture or the sugar will crystallize. When it was a dark caramel colour, I removed it from the heat and whisked in a tablespoon of butter and 300ml of double cream. It bubbles up and sizzles but just keep mixing and you'll get your delicious sauce in no time. Add in salt to taste and then store the extra (if there's any left) in sterilized jars.
They're not that difficult to make and considering this was my first ever attempt at choux pastry, I don't think they turned out too bad! They taste so good that any minor aesthetic imperfections are instantly forgiven by the lucky people that get to chow down on them!!
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