French pastry day … A classic , Profiteroles

I love baking so much … It’s so terapeutic and fun , you can’t imagine . I love baking as much as I love any cuisine , cooking is not all about salads and meat , it’s also about baking , pastries , patisserie .

I am a sweets fan and of course ultimately  a pastry fan , but of course when we talk about pastry we talk about a different aspect of the culinary world , a much more difficult part .

Why is baking a difficult part of the culinary world ? Because it’s all about mathematics and chemistry , discipline and measurement .

You can’t go freestyle on it , like in the cuisine part for example where sometimes even ingredients that don’t go togheter , sometimes they can with enough experience and cooking skill .

But in the patisserie world we have to be acurrate , from measurement , to degrees , almost in every aspect . You have to be  really experienced in the pastry world as a chef to produce pastry recipes , or to get a bit funky with the ingredients .

As a begginer I personally advice you not to get funky , and stick to the recepy , otherwise you’ll have the surprise that the dough hasn’t risen enough or maybe the cream ain’t thick enough , the taste is  horrible or if we go into the profiterole world , the first bunch that I made , without measurement and degrees control , were hard as a rock .

You could literally break your head with them ( haha ) ! 

 But on my second attempt , thanks to the guidance of my mentor in the culinary arts ( mom ) , I finnaly achieved some awesome results , the choux pastry was perfect , the profiteroles have risen perfectly and they were really tasty .

The first mistake that I made was to open the oven doors and the heat from the oven was not enough to prepare the choux pastry , thus resulting in rock hard profiteroles .

And another mistake was not measuring the ingredients such as flour and adding 2 much eggs perhaps , also not working the choux pastry enough .

Anyway the most important aspect when you are baking Is to actually find out what your mistakes were  , and keep those on track … trust me you’ll learn more from your mistakes than from your achievments .

Keep a note on all your mistakes and also a note on how to fix those mistakes . This is trully an important aspect as a pastry chef  or ‘’ at home chef ‘’ .

So guys , I ran you through some of my mistakes , take a note  , clear your head and let’s start baking !

The ingredients you need for this recepy are :

      For the choux pastry :

-          200 g of unsalted butter

-          200 g of flour

-          500 ml of milk ( or water , whatever you like )

-          A pinch of salt

-          5 eggs

      For the chantilly cream :

-          400 ml of heavy cream

-          1 vanilla pod or you could use vanilla extract or something new I’ve seen on the market sugar with vanilla seeds … just don’t use any of that vanilla essence , it’s not good and doesen’t even come close to vanilla aroma .

-          if you are using a vanilla pod , or vanilla extract add 2 table spoons of sugar to convince it it’s a dessert , if you add sugar with vanilla seeds do not add any sugar at all

      For the chocolate sauce :

-          200 g of dark chocolate ( 75% cocoa solids )

-          2 tablespoons of honey ( you could add more if you like it more sweet )

-          60 g of butter

-          A pinch of salt

-          1 huge cup of milk

 Preheat your oven  ( to max degrees ) , Use a sauce pan or a pot whatever you preffer , add the 500 ml of milk , bring it up to a boil and add the butter , let it melt , then add the flour and styr vigorously , untill it forms a dough like consistency .

Take it off the heat and cover it with cling film and let it chill . After it chilled add 1 egg and keep styring until it bonds . Do the same with all the eggs but just remember to add them 1 by 1 .

After that put some baking paper on your baking tray , rubb some butter on it , then using a pipping bag just pipe shapes of little profiteroles . As you pipe they also form some pointy shapes at the top . Put your finger in a bit of warm water and press it down gently , otherwise that pointy shape will cook a lot faster than the whole profiterol and it will surerly burn , and no one likes burnt pastry ( bleax :D )

 After you've arranged them on your tray , change the temperature of the oven to 180 degrees and bake them for aprox.  25 to 30 minutes .

 For the chantilly cream just pour the heavy cream into a bowl then add your vanilla beans or vanilla sugar or extract and just whipp it with a whisk untill it gets hard .

 As for the chocolate sauce .... on a bain marie just add your chopped chocolate , with a pinch of salt  , 2 tablespoons of honey and 60 g of butter . Let it melt gently and styr it once in a while , then take it off the bain marie and add your milk and styr it again until it formes a sauce consistency .

When your profiteroles are ready take them out of the oven , let them chill a bit , then using a piping bag fill them inside with the chantilly cream .


                                Serve this little fellas with some chocolate sauce and icing sugar , they are just plainly amazing .... i just love profiteroles i could eat a thousand !!! You cand fill them with anything you like or top them with anything you like ... it's up to your prefference and style ... this is the way i like to eat them !

   So here they are i hope you'll enjoy these profiteroles , what can i say the french kick ass when it comes to cooking and especially pastry !

Cute little fellas ! and they taste amazing !!

So guys until my next post i hope you enjoyed this recipe and give it a go , trust me as long as you respect everything i've wrote you nothing can go wrong , and if you don't get it right the first time ... who cares it's not the end of the world you'll get it right next time .

The importance is to try and see what you can achieve . And if you get them right , trust me you won't regret putting the effort of making them :D


Bon Appetit !