Perfecting profiteroles
- Emily Hancock
- Nov 29, 2017
- 4 min read
Recently I was asked by my landlady to make profiteroles. She was under the impression that this would be a fairly easy task. Now, I’m fairly well practised at baking cakes; I can make a decent cookie, not-half-bad brownies, the yearly Christmas yule log, and once when feeling particularly adventurous I branched out to hot cross buns. But profiteroles? Never. The words ‘choux pastry’ are enough to make any hobby baker tremble with fear. What’s more, I was given about 4 hours’ notice to produce this Parisian patisserie. The pressure was on. This was no time for messing around, so I tied my apron and got to work.
In true Bake-Off style, I was presented with a scrap of paper, about 2 inches square with the bare bones of a recipe – you know, the type that was cut out of the housewives’ column of a newspaper in the 1960s. Granted the ingredient measurements were there, but the method consisted of something no longer than ‘make the choux pastry’. Cooking times? Nah, not necessary.
My first attempt was pretty disastrous. I knew that the consistency of the dough was far too runny, and when I removed them from the oven, the shells looked more like mini Yorkshire puddings than crisp round puffs of pastry.Then I remembered that I had the world’s biggest recipe book at my fingertips. Dutifully, I googled ‘how to make profiteroles’ and was presented with a plethora of tips and tricks. Turns out that the method is actually quite complex, and I’d missed out a few crucial steps. Here (right) is my second attempt - not perfect, but certainly better than the first!
Here’s what I learnt from my baking (mis)adventure, to help you perfect profiteroles on the first go:
You must pour the flour and salt in one go and whisk it immediately. The technical term for this is ‘chuting’, and it’s best done by taking a piece of baking paper, creasing it by folding it in half, and using this to pour the flour and salt in.
Cooking the flour is really important. You must cook the batter for 10 mins whilst stirring constantly. This is hard work!
Use a greased baking sheet, or grease a bit of baking paper
Sprinkle a little water over the tray before baking. This creates steam in the oven which helps the profiteroles rise.
Pipe/spoon into little blobs. They expand a lot in the oven (I ended up with profiteroles the size of apples)
Once cooked, pierce the bottom of the profiteroles with a skewer to allow the steam to escape
Turn the oven off and leave the profiteroles in for a while. This allows them to dry out. Different recipes call for different length of time you must do this for
Wait until the last minute before filling the profiteroles with cream – otherwise they will go soggy. You can store the cooked shells in an air tight container overnight.
Here’s a recipe to get you started!
Ingredients
For the choux pastry:
200ml/7fl oz cold water
4 tsp caster sugar
85g/3oz unsalted butter, plus extra for greasing
115g/4oz plain flour
pinch salt
3 medium free-range eggs, beaten
For the filling:
300ml double cream
1tsp vanilla essence
sugar to taste
Method
Bring the milk, water, sugar and butter to the boil, ensuring that the butter melts before the mix starts to bubble. Now ‘chute’ in all the flour and whisk in well before beating the mix with a wooden spoon while cooking it over a medium-high heat until the flour is cooked out (about 10 minutes).
Preheat the oven to 220C. Transfer the mixture to a bowl and beat for a minute with an electric whisk, until it has cooled to 60C.
Beat in the eggs one at a time, until the mix is smooth and shiny.
Prepare a baking sheet by greasing it.
Using a piping bag with a plain nozzle attachment, pipe the paste into 2cm balls. Sprinkle water over the tray.
Bake for 10 minutes, then reduce the temperature of the oven to 185C and cook for another 20 minutes. Turn the oven off.
Remove the profiteroles from the oven and pierce the bottoms with a skewer. If you have time, place them back in the oven for as long as you have to let them crisp up. Take out the oven and leave to cool on a wire rack.
To make the filling, whisk the cream with the vanilla essence until it has doubled in size. Add sugar to taste, depending on how sweet you want the filling to be (I used about 2 tbsp)
Just before serving, fill the profiteroles. You can either do this using a piping bag, or by splitting the shells in half, spooning in the cream and sandwiching the top on. Serve with chocolate sauce.
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