Profiteroles

This might be one of my favorite desserts.  When ever I'm back home in England and I see profiteroles on the dessert menu, I always order it.  It's the perfect combination of light fluffy pastry, whipped cream and chocolate sauce, and yet it's not too sweet.  Profiteroles are created by stuffing balls of choux pastry (the same pastry in which eclairs are made) with cream and then topping it with various flavorful sauces.  Some may think that profiteroles can be quite hard to make, because the choux pastry has to be created in a very precise method so that the pastry can rise correctly so that the puffs come out with a hollow center.  However,  I've never had any difficultly getting the right consistency.  This dessert has pretty simple instructions and only uses a few basic ingredients!

Here's what you'll need:

1 cup of milk

1 stick of butter

A pinch of salt

1 cup of all-purpose flour

3 large eggs

1 cup of heavy whipping cream

1/2 cup milk chocolate chips

Shortening

Method:

1. Heat your oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit.  Pour the milk into a saucepan with the stick of butter all chopped up and the pinch of salt.  Heat it up over medium heat until the butter is completely melted.
2. Add the cup of flour all in at once and immediately stuff the mixture with a wooden spoon.  The pastry will come together and form a single ball.  Continue stirring over medium-low heat for about another minute.
3. Transfer the pastry (still hot) into a food processor and add the eggs in one at a time while processing at high speed.
4. Once the eggs are all incorporated and thoroughly mixed in, it's time to get your pastry bag ready.  If you have a pastry bag then go ahead and use it, but I always just use a Ziploc back.  Pipe your pastry out onto cookie sheets lined with parchment paper.  You can make your puffs any size you like, but I tend to make the base circle about 1 1/2" in diameter and then pipe it about 3 circles high.  If your profiteroles come to a point on top, dip your finger in water and then push down gently on the point.  This way your puffs will come out of the oven perfectly round.
5. Place the profiteroles in the oven for 20 minutes.  After the first 20 minutes, turn the oven off and leave the profiteroles in there for 10 more minutes.  During this time the pastry is hardening.  If you take them out they will sink and become flat.
6. While your profiteroles are finishing up, whip the cream.  Once your profiteroles have cooled slightly you can go ahead and fill them.  You can either cut the profiteroles in half horizontally and spread a spoonful of cream onto the bottom of half and then put the top back on, or do what I usually do.  Take another piping/Ziploc back and insert any kind of pointy, star shaped piping tip. At this point, you should be able to poke a tiny hole into the profiterole with the piping tip and pipe cream into the middle.  You'll feel some tension once the pastry is filled completely.
7. Melt the chocolate over a double boiler and a small dollop of shortening, just to make the chocolate a little easier to drizzle.  Add more if needed.  As you can see from my picture, I didn't quite add enough.
8. Drizzle the chocolate over the profiteroles and they're good to go!
   

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