Angry Profiteroles; A Little Piece of Heaven

Yesterday I was baking one of my favourite pound cakes and for some reason it exploded all over my oven and worse still, it tasted horribly. So after ranting about how upset I was about wasting all the ingredients and having to clean my oven, again, I decided to put my anger (crankiness) into something productive and make profiteroles.

I had never made them before in my life and my mother has always assured me, making them is a nightmare. But.. It was oddly easy. I used the recipe from Kookook, a Dutch cookbook with basis recipes and preparation techniques. I think everyone should have a cookbook which covers all the basics. And going back to them, sometimes, is the smartest thing.

(of course, as always, I forgot to take pictures during, so you'll have to make do with the finished result)

Profiteroles (Kookook)

75 grams butter

100 grams flower

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 deciliter water

3 eggs

Pre-heat the oven at 200C and prepare a baking tray with grease proof paper.

Cut the butter in cubes and make sure you sift the flower. Add the butter and water to a sauce pan and bring to the boil and wait till the butter has melted. Remove the pan from the heat and add the flower and salt and stir till incorporated completely.

Return the pan to low heat and keep stirring till your dough starts drying and unsticks from the pan like one ball(about half a minute)

Transfer the dough to a bowl and let sit for about a minute to cool slightly. Whisk in eggs one by one, the next only when the former has been incorporated fully, with the final egg, whisk the egg loose seperately and add a little bit at a time, until the dough starts falling off your whisk. Remember it needs to be pipable. (I only used 2 1/2 eggs)

Keep whisking till the dough is soft and shiny (about 2 minutes according the recipe, but I stopped very shortly after the last egg).

Transfer your batter to a piping bag fitted with a simple nuzzle (1cm-1 1/2 cm diameter) and pipe small heaps onto your baking tray. Leave about 2cm of space between heaps as the profiteroles will expand while cooking. Dependend on size you will have anything between 10 to 25 profiteroles.

Bake your profiteroles in the centre of the oven to a golden brown, for about 15 to 25 minutes, again depending on size. They are cooked when they are golden brown all over and feel really light.

Remove from tray and leave to cool on a rack.

White Chocolate Mousse Filling (my own recipe)

100 grams white chocolate

85ml egg whites (about 2 1/2 egg whites)

sugar

cream

Whip the egg whites and the sugar till stiff peaks form. Do the same with the cream. Melt the chocolate  and leave to cool slightly. Add a little of the whipped cream and fold in. Add the rest of the whipped cream. When incorporated completely, gently fold in the egg whites. Leave in the fridge to cool and set for two hours at least. 

When the mousse has set, put it in a piping bag with a small simple nuzzle. Use a small sharp knife to make tiny holes in your profiteroles and pipe in the filling. 

Put your profiteroles in the fridge upside down when filled so the chocolate mousse can set inside the profiteroles.

Chocolate Glaze (Kookook)

100 grams dark chocolate morsles (a regular bar will do too)

50ml cream

Bring the cream to the boil (this happens really quickl), turn down the heat and add in the chocolate, stir till all is melted and incorporated. Remove from the fire.

Now one by one rotate your profiteroles through the glaze, it's quite firm and after return to e fridge so the chocolate sets.

After 30 minutes your profiteroles are ready to eat!