There are few things in life as delightful as biting into homemade profiteroles! Crispy hollow choux pastry balls filled with custard or cream then drizzled with chocolate, these are a terrific small-bite dessert option for gatherings.
The pastry shells can be made days, even months in advance. And one batch makes almost 50 profiteroles!!
Close up of a pile of profiteroles filled with custard and drizzled with chocolate
Profiteroles
Profiteroles are a hazard. It is way too easy to inhale an indecent amount in one sitting.
I exaggerate not. Because unlike many desserts, profiteroles seem so light rather than heavy and overly sweet.
Combine that with the fact that they are so small, you can easily swipe one without anyone noticing as you casually stroll past the pile (yet again…), and you don’t even need to break stride as you bite into it. Or better yet, if you can manage the whole thing in one bite…
For the record, I cannot.
I am a Two-Bite-Profiterole gal.
Close up showing the custard inside a profiterole
PROFITEROLE PASTRY = CHOUX PASTRY
Those crispy, light as air profiterole balls are called choux pastry balls. It’s French and it’s magical. 4 simple ingredients: butter, water, egg and flour. Mix, pipe (or even dollop), bake.
And whoosh! Those little innocent looking blobs of pastry puff up 5 or 6 times and they’re hollow inside, just begging to be filled with something tasty!
Pile of Cooked Chop Pastry Balls
3 parts to profiteroles
Profiteroles are made up of 3 components:
1. The pastry balls (choux pastry) – crispy on the outside, hollow on the inside, ready to be filled with your Filling of choice!
2. Filling – there’s a few options here. Vanilla custard (Creme Patissiere) is the most common here in Australia – piped inside the balls. Cream is also a firm favourite – and also a good quicker filling option to making homemade custard. And then there’s profiteroles in the States which are split then stuffed with ice cream rather than piping a filling in. All are delish, but for me, profiteroles filled with custard will always be my favourite child. 😂
3. Chocolate Sauce – Drizzle or dip the profiteroles in the chocolate sauce. When it’s warm, it’s a chocolate sauce. When it cools, it sets to a soft chocolate – like the chocolate you get on eclairs at bakeries.
Spoon drizzling melted chocolate over profiteroles
What goes in Choux pastry – profiterole pastry balls
Here’s all you need to make Choux pastry – eggs, butter, water and flour.
There’s no baking powder or other rising agent. The thing that makes choux pastry puff up is the large volume of water in the batter which evaporates into steam as it bakes, causing the protein in the egg to expand and puff up
Ingredients in Choux Pastry for Profiteroles
How to make choux pastry – profiterole pastry
Choux pastry is really easy to make, it’s just a little different to the usual cake batters so there’s a couple of things to be aware of:
After mixing the water, butter and flour, remove from the stove to cool for 10 minutes before adding the egg, otherwise the heat will cook the egg and prevent the choux pastry from rising; and
Add the egg one at a time and mix well in between. The dough will split initially, but after a bit of vigorous mixing, it will come together.
How to make Profiteroles
Though I’ve used a piping bag for the dough, you can even just use 2 teaspoons to drop little dollops of the dough onto baking trays!
TIP: For nice round profiteroles, pat down any peaks with your finger and even push wonky blobs into nice, even dome shapes. The more even the shape of the blobs, the more round and pro looking your balls will be.
How to bake choux pastry for profiteroles
A key step in making profiteroles is the double bake of the pastry balls. The pastry balls cook through and puff up in the first bake. Then the balls are pierced and returned to the oven for a second bake to dry out the inside.
The reason this is an important step is to prolong the life of the profiteroles once filled with custard or cream. And it’s during the second bake that the balls become fabulously crispy!!
