Mini Profiteroles

Howdy brunch buddies!

Generally, it is hard for me to wake up early especially on Sunday. However, baking does give me an excitement to jump off my bed on Sunday.

The smell of freshly baked pastry or bread in the morning is so refreshing and relaxing at the same time. That is just how I like my weekend to be. 

Last saturday, I spent quite sometime on pinterest looking over recipes and inspiration on my next sunday baking plan. and it came across my mind a cake I used to eat during my uni life, called treasure cake. The base is chocolate mudcake topped with profiteroles coated in chocolate.

When the cake was on the table, everyone was pretty much competing for the profiteroles. But I kinda forgot about this humble pastry for a while but I am about to be reminded :)  

So, finally it was decided! Profiteroles it is for my sunday baking session. I have not had profiteroles in a while, especially when I am back in Indonesia, profiteroles here are somehow different from what I used to have in Australia. They call in cream puff in Indonesia and usually, they fill the puff with custard instead of chantilly creme. 

The version of profiteroles I prefer is the one with chantilly creme filling and an avalanche of warm chocolate sauce on top of profiteroles stacks. That was just how I imagined it before sleep and could not wait to bake them the next morning. 

So, this is basically my first attempt, and surprisingly choux pastry is actually very easy to make, the filling and the chocolate sauce are also super simple. So it is definitely worth a try. Enjoy!

Mini Profiteroles

Yield: 10 small servings
Cooking Time: 1 hour 30 minutes

Ingredients:

Choux Pastry

60ml milk

100ml water

75g all-purpose flour

1/2tsp caster sugar

Pinch of salt

50g unsalted butter (cut into cubes)

2 eggs

Chantilly Cream

150ml whipping cream

1tbsp icing sugar

1/2tsp vanilla essence

Chocolate Sauce

100g dark chocolate

15g unsalted butter

30ml milk

30ml heavy cream

1tsp caster sugar

1tbsp icing sugar for garnish

Method:

Choux Pasrty

1. Preheat the oven to 200 degree celcius

2. Place milk, water and butter into a pan and set over a low heat until the butter melts, add sugar and salt, bring it to boil and remove the pan from the heat

3. Sift the flour then tip it in the pan with the butter mixture. Stir vigorously with a wooden spoon until the dough comes off easily from the side of the pan

4. Wait for 3-5 minutes until the mixture cools down a bit and then crack the egg in the pan and beat them one at a time. The mixture might become clumpy at first but don't panic, just keep stirring, use a bit of arm muscle until you have a smooth paste. 

5. Spoon the mixture into a piping bag with plain nozzle. Line a baking paper and pipe a small blob of the mix about a size of a cherry tomato. Give space between the blob. 

6. Wet the tip of your finger and level the pointy top of the droplet for a bit, not too much otherwise you will ruin the shape

7. Bake for 10 minutes, take it out and pierce the puff with toothpick to let the inside cooked. Put back in the oven immediately for another 10 minutes until golden brown.

8. Cool the pastry completely before filling

Chantilly Creme

1. Mix all the ingredients with electric mixer just until the shape holds. Do not overbeat the mixture otherwise you will end up with butter

2. When the choux pastries are completely cool, cut it into half and pipe the cream in the bottom part of the pastry using small icing noozle so when you put the top part back, you could actually see the beautiful swirls of cream from the side

Chocolate Sauce

1. Melt chocolate in a a double boiler, stir with sugar until the chocolate melts completely, gradually add milk and heavy cream and stir until you reach smooth consistency. 

2. Stack the pastries, sift icing sugar on top of them and pour the warm chocolate sauce on top with a slow motion and classical music background ha!

P.S Feel free to add in more sugar to the recipe as I personally like everything less sweet :)