Practise Make Profiteroles

They say ‘practise makes perfect’ but I prefer to say 'practise makes profiteroles'! I've only ever attempted making them once before and it was a total disaster.

I have The Croc Bake Off in a week’s time and I’m thinking about making a salted caramel chocolate cake topped with a pyramid of cream filled profiteroles – something that will be a real show stopper. Hopefully it will be a sight to behold and lift what is already a scrumptious chocolate cake into the winner’s circle.

The last time I attempted to make profiteroles I was still in university and living in the US. I had never attempted to make anything like them before and I had never seen anyone make them either – the unknown was how I made a mess of things. When I started adding in the eggs I panicked and threw it out deciding it was better to buy them than persevere.

Thanks to the benefit of watching countless cooking programmes where they’ve shown the stages of the horrible doughy mess that miraculously turns into stretchy and smooth dough I knew what I was getting myself in for with this. Also, I have a lot more baking under my belt than I did when I was in my early 20s.

Here’s the recipe from my Le Cordon Bleu Patisserie & Baking Foundations cookbook.

Ingredients list:

Profiteroles

125ml water

125ml full fat milk

125g unsalted butter

5g salt

12g sugar

150g flour

4-5 eggs

1 egg slightly beaten for egg wash

Whipped Cream

250ml whipping cream

50g icing sugar

Salted Caramel

Chocolate Ganache (link to follow)

1.     Mix the water, milk, butter, salt and sugar in a medium saucepan and cook over a medium heat until the butter melts. Remove from heat and add in all of the flour at once and stir through completely. Replace the saucepan on the medium heat and stir continuously until the batter comes away from the sides and forms a ball. For the Americans out there it looks like the world’s thickest starter for cream gravy – for the British, well I’m not sure how best to describe it)

2.     Once a ball has formed you need to transfer the batter into a clean bowl and let it cool for about 5-10 minutes. Once cooled add in one egg at a time and mix until if is fully incorporated. This is when it gets a bit funky. Don’t lose faith and toss the effort into the bin like I did all that time ago. The egg will actually mix in and go from a clumpy, eggy and slimy mess to a stretchy and sticky dough. Just make sure you add them one at a time because you may not need all of the eggs.

3.     Once the batter is nice and sticky you should prepare the pastry bag with a round tip and fill the bag full of the dough. I like to put my pastry bag into a pint glass and fold back the sides to make it easier to fill. Once full of the dough I shake it down to the piping tip and twist the top to keep it from coming out.

4.     Finally, pipe rounds onto a silicon mat and put into a preheated oven at 220°C (425°F) and immediately turn the oven down to 205°C (400°F). When the profiteroles start to colour turn them around and bake until golden. Place on a wire rack to cool. (Don't forget to tap down the nipples on the rounds before putting them into the oven - you can give them an egg wash at this point to make them shiny)

5.     While the profiteroles are cooling pour the cream and sugar together into a mixing bowl with the whisk attachment and whip until stiff peaks form.

6.     Put the cream into a piping bag fitted with a piping tube tip and fill the profiteroles from underneath. Make sure to add plenty of cream so the profiteroles don’t taste like semi-sweet Yorkshire puds.

7.     Once you have filled the profiteroles you can stack them in a pyramid stack and drizzle over with the salted caramel or the chocolate ganache.