Bakesalotlady – baker's paradise

If you want to try churros or anything made of choux pastry where I live… You’ll have to make it on your own. If you have fairs and festivals where you get churros and profiteroles and eclairs then I am jealous of you. Anyway, since I love to make things I don’t get to eat here, I made churros and oh my god. Those things are SINFUL. However, there’s something even better than churros. You know what? PROFITEROLES! You may also know them as Cream Puffs, but well Profiteroles sound fancier, hence I choose to call it the former. This is a French delicacy. It’s wonderfully light and airy and an absolute crowd pleaser! The best part of making profiteroles is that you can fill them with anything you want, be it jam, custard, whipped cream the options are endless. I filled mine with ooey-gooey Banoffee Filling from SPRIG. If you like caramelly toffee banana goodness, this is a ticket to wonderland. I cannot tell you how incredibly gooey and sticky this filling is, it’s almost too good to be true. And no that’s not it, after filling these babies we glaze them with a dark chocolate glaze with even more banoffee goodness in it. This is not for the faint hearted. If you want to know how to make it, keep reading.

Also, a side note, these taste best the day they are made and this batch makes for a big bunch of 15-20 people depending on their appetites, so feel free to halve the recipe if you want to make a smaller batch.

Preparation and Cooking time: 30 mins

Baking time: 25-30 mins

Total time: 1 hour

Serves: About 15-20 people, makes roughly 24 profiteroles.

Ingredients:

For the Choux pastry-

180 ml water

50 ml milk

110 g unsalted butter

3 tbsps. brown sugar/plain castor sugar

A generous pinch of salt

150 g plain flour

3 large room temperature eggs

1 tsp pure vanilla extract

For the filling: 1 jar of Sprig’s Banoffee Topping & Spread

For the glaze-

120 ml cream (35% butterfat)

80 g 72% Dark Chocolate

3 tbsps. Sprig Banoffee Spread

A pinch of salt

Method:

1. In a medium-large deep and heavy bottomed saucepan add your water, milk, butter, sugar and salt. Place over medium to high heat and let the butter melt. Once the mixture almost reaches a simmer, lower the heat add your flour and mix with a wooden spoon or spatula till you see no lumps, the flour will stick together and form a dough ball. Keep mixing for about 45 seconds to cook the flour and you’ll see a thin skin form on the base of the pan. Take it off the heat and transfer this dough ball into a large bowl.
2. Mix the dough with the spoon and leave it to cool down, cool enough to add the eggs.
3. Meanwhile, preheat your oven to 200 C and line two large baking sheets with parchment paper. Take a large piping bag fit a round tip and keep ready.
4. Now, this is my favourite and most tire-less way of putting this dough together. If you want to, you can use the trusty wooden spoon and put it together, I used a hand-held mixer because it makes it much easier, saves a lot of time and my arms.
5. Take the hand-held mixer and mix the dough for about a minute to make sure it completely cools down, now when it is cold enough, add the eggs one by one and mixer thoroughly. Let the previous egg get incorporated completely before adding the next one, and lastly add in the vanilla. Mix well. The dough should look like a thick paste which is capable of holding a bit of shape.
6. Transfer this mixture to a piping bag. Dab a little bit of this paste to the edges of the pan and stick the parchment paper on to it, so that the paper stays put. Now pipe a squash ball sized amount of this paste in a way you would frost the top of a cupcake, leave enough room in between, because these puff up. I make mine fairly large so I get around 23-24 cream puffs. If there are peaks on top of the piped batter you can slightly wet your finger with water and smooth them off.
7. Now bake these profiteroles at 200 C for 15 minutes and then reduce the temperature to 175 C and bake for another 15 minutes or until they have a beautiful amber coloured crust. Please do not open the oven in between, while these are baking because it may cause them to shrink. Also, it is crucial that you are patient with these puffs and wait till they turn beautifully amber coloured, because if they are under baked, they will shrink when you take them out. Once you see they’re baked, turn the oven off and slightly open the oven door and let the profiteroles cool gently. After 20-25 mins, you can remove them.
8. While the profiteroles cool, you can make the chocolate glaze: In a small bowl chop up your chocolate and keep aside, in a sauce pan, heat up your cream just up to a simmer. Pour the cream on to the chocolate, add the banoffee and salt, cover the bowl for two minutes and then stir until combined. You can also do this in the microwave. Keep aside to use later.

ASSEMBLING:

1. Once your profiteroles are cooled to room temperature, fill a piping bag with a narrow round tip full of the yummy Banoffee filling, using a sharp paring knife, make a small slit on the bottom of the profiterole and squeeze in the filling till you feel the weight of it increase. Keep going till you have filled them all. You can bring some variation by cutting some profiteroles in half and filling their centers with the filling, like a sandwich.
2. Once you fill all of them dip their tops in the glaze and if you like, dust the tops with some icing sugar. Serve right away!

You have no idea how amazing these babies are! They taste best the day they are made, I will advise not to store them for longer periods. This is an absolute must have for your next dinner party. Sure, it takes a few steps but it is absolutely worth every little effort. Hop on to www.sprig.co.in and get your Banoffee spread and make these! And if you’re too lazy to make em, you can just eat the Banoffee straight outta the jar! Happy eating! <3

Try it and please send in your feedback, I appreciate it a lot!

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Love,

Bakesalotlady❤