Profteroles with chantilly cream and chocolate sauce

Ahhhh!
Tu parle Francais?
#wowedbymylinguisticskills:)
Oh, the joys of choux pastry. I love the puffy, golden wonder that is a profiterole or eclair, filled with whipped cream, ice cream or pastry cream and covered in velvety, rich chocolate sauce... Sorry, got a bit carried away there. So, um, as you may have gathered, I love choux pastry. And it is so much more simply than you would think. Pastry, cream, chocolate.... What more do you want?

And the elegance and sophistication of croquembouche is almost unparalleled in the world of wedding desserts. Ok there's the bog standard cake, cupcake towers and such but the delicacy of choux pastry is like no other- except maybe Napolean cake. Now it's time for a string of random French words. Vive la France! Oui Oui! Macaron! Bonjour! Versailles! Louis Vuitton(you wish)! Paris! Pierre Hermes (again, you wish)!


(Note, April 2016: Je suis plus forte en francais maintenant. I was such a weird child lol. What's with the hashtags? Cringe.)

Profiteroles with chantilly cream and chocolate sauce

I think that I have said enough and that it is time for you to try these puffy morsels. They are absolutely delicious and a favourite dessert of mine- and friends and family!
P.s, I used a different chocolate sauce recipe in this picture but found the one shown here to be the best so yours will probably be thinner than shown here. Sorry for any worry or confusion:)

Ingredients

For the profiteroles
1 cup milk (235 ml) , whole or skimmed
1/2 cup (1 stick or 113g) butter
1 cup plain/all-purpose/cake flour
4 medium eggs
For the chantilly cream
3/4 cup (200ml) double/heavy cream
1/2 tbls castor sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract/ 1/2 tsp vanilla bean paste
For the chocolate sauce
3.50z (100g) Dark/bittersweet chocolate or milk chocolate

100ml double/heavy cream
2 tbls castor sugar (to be omitted if using milk chocolate)
1 tbls brewed coffee (optional)

Method

Preheat the oven to 180c/375f.
Heat the milk and butter together in a saucepan. Stir slightly with a wooden spoon along the way. When the butter has melted, dump in (yes, I said dump in) the flour all at once. Do not add it gradually- ALL AT ONCE. Stir rapidly with the heat turned down low until a cohesive ball is formed. Once that happens, take it off the heat, tip into a glass bowl and leave to cool completely.
Once the mixture has cooled, beat in the eggs one at at time with a stand mixer or electric whisk. Make sure each egg is fully encorporated before adding the next. When the eggs have all been added and the mixture looks smooth, spoon it into a piping bag fitted with with a large, round tip. Pipe mounds onto a baking sheet lined with parchment or baking paper and smooth the tops with a finger dipped in water. Place in the oven for 20 minutes or until they look puffed and a light golden colour. Leave them to sit, turned over, for another 10 minutes with the oven turned off and then cut a small slit to release steam and leave to cool.
Add some hot water to a saucepan and simmer. Place a glass bowl on top of the saucepan, making sure it is not touching the water and add the cream, sugar(if you're adding it) and coffee. You won't be able to taste the coffee, but it will enhance the chocolate flavour. You can omit it if you want to but you really won't taste it. When the cream mixture is hot, add the chopped up chocolate. Stir it until the chocolate melts and it is smooth. Set it aside to cool.
Whip the cream, sugar and vanilla together until soft/slightly stiff peaks are formed( when you remove the whisk, the cream drops very, very slowly). Fill the profiteroles either by spooning the cream in or piping it. I used a disposable piping bag with no tip and filled them through slit that was already there. Dip them in the cooled chocolate sauce and serve. They can be eaten while it is still liquid, or popped in the fridge for the chocolate to harden slightly.
Enjoy!

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