Profiteroles!!

                          

So all of us have heard of choux pastry and the beautiful yet rustic looking profiteroles, or the more omnipresent éclairs. There's something very earthy about them and in my quest to try the basic pastry doughs, choux pastry was only waiting to be tested. and lo and behold, we have a simple rendition here that'll take only half an hour to whip up and will suit every mood and every palate. (Come on, who are we kidding? can you really go wrong with the combination of light, flaky pastry, strawberries and chocolate?? :D)

Recipe adapted from here with changes.

What you will need to make about 20 mini profiteroles:

1/2 cup water

45 g unsalted butter

1/2 cup all-purpose flour

a pinch of salt

2 large eggs

How you go about it:

Preheat the oven to 190 C.

Line a baking tray with baking paper.

Whisk together the flour and salt and keep aside. 

 Bring the water to a boil in a medium-size saucepan over medium-high heat.  Add the butter.  When the butter has melted, add the flour mixture all at once and stir vigorously.  Cook and stir until the mixture forms a ball that doesn’t separate. (Don't cook for too long though or you will end up with unappetizing looking profiteroles). Remove from the heat and cool slightly (about less than a minute).  Add the eggs, one at a time, beating after each one until the dough is smooth. The consistency should not be too runny or too thick. If you draw a line in the batter, it should gradually fill up after a bit.

Spoon the mix into a pastry bag with a snipped half inch tip. Pipe out the dough in two inch circles about an inch apart onto a lined baking sheet. Bake the puffs for about 25 minutes or until they are golden brown and puffy. Take care to ensure that the bottoms do not burn. Halfway through the baking, reduce the temperature to 170 C. The idea here is that the steam from the water aids the pastry in puffing up and the relatively high temperature at the beginning helps to this end. Remove the puffs from the oven and cool on a cooling rack.

In the meanwhile, melt 300 g of chocolate in a bain marie to pour over the profiteroles.

Once the profiteroles have cooled, slit the choux pastry into half, wedge in a halved hulled fresh strawberry, dust some sugar on top, close the profiterole shut and pour melted chocolate over the top. Sprinkle some chopped nuts if they make you happy. I also went on another tangent and filled some of my profiteroles with decadent Dulce de Leche and slathered it with chocolate on top. and topped that with a drizzle of leftover caramel syrup. and violà! There you have the uber chic profiteroles! 

P.S: Coming soon, the savory version, called the gougères!