Looking for a sweet treat to share with the ones you love this Valentine’s Day? Look no further than these delectable profiteroles from All-Star Chef Zoë François. The dough is called pâte à choux in French, and is the starting point for both profiteroles (more commonly called cream puffs) and eclairs. This dough gives you a ton of versatility depending on how you pipe it, and what you decide to fill it with. We chose to fill with ice cream – whatever ice cream your sweetheart loves the most. Although the type of ice cream is optional, the ganache is not, it’s an easy 3-ingredient must-have for the top of this dessert.
Profiteroles:
Prep Time: 1 hour, Baking Time: 25 minutes
Ingredients
Dough:
- 1/2 cup whole milk
- 1/2 cup water
- 8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
- 1 tablespoon sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- 4 large eggs, room temperature
Ganache:
- 8 ounces heavy whipping cream
- 8 ounces bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped – not chips
- 2 tablespoons corn syrup
Instructions – Profiterole dough
- Preheat the oven to 375°F
- Line two baking sheets with parchment or silpat.
- Bring the milk, water, butter, sugar and salt to a rapid simmer.
- Dump the flour in all at once.
- Stir with a wooden spoon over low heat. The dough will come together as a smooth ball and the bottom will have a skim of dough stuck to it.
- Remove dough from the pot and place in bowl of stand mixer, fitted with paddle attachment.
- Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each, until it comes together in a smooth paste.
- If you don’t have a paddle attachment scrape down the bowl after each egg.
- It will be thick enough to hold its shape, but thin enough to pipe easily.
- Fit a pastry bag with a large round tip and pipe the dough into quarter sized balls.
- If there are points sticking up on the ends just wet your finger and smooth them out.
- Place the sheets into the oven and bake for about 10 minutes, until they are puffy, but have little color.
- Quickly rotate the trays from top to bottom and back to front.
- They may deflate a touch, but don’t worry, they will puff again as they continue to bake.
- Bake for an additional 7 to 10 minutes or just until they start to turn golden.
- Prop the door open with a wooden spoon and continue to bake for about 5 more minutes. Remove from oven and allow to cool completely before filling.
- They can be made ahead and frozen for up to a couple of weeks.
Assemble:
- Once you are ready to assemble the profiteroles cut the pastry open along the sides with a sharp knife.
- Scoop ice cream into the pastry shells.
- Freeze until ready to serve.
Instructions: Ganache
- Heat the cream to a simmer.
- Add the chocolate, swirl the pan to cover the chocolate with the cream and allow to sit for 2 minutes.
- Gently stir the cream and chocolate together. You don’t want to whip too much air into it or it won’t be smooth and shiny.
- Drizzle over the profiteroles and serve!
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