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Tuesday 7 February 2012

Croquemsmoosh

Profiteroles

My little everest.. This is only my second time trying these, but I can see thousands more to come. It's a niggle in the back of my mind planning planning planning what I'll do differently next time and what I want to try. I want to make all the different variations of the dough, I want to try custard and cream fillings and I want to try toffee, caramel and all different kinds of chocolate on top.


These are my special something. I first tried to make them for my wonderful Ani's birthday. This is a BIG celebration for us. We always have a get-together, and we all exchange gifts- it's like our own little Christmas. Celebrating Ani with all her rawr and smoochability. Of course, the dish was a complete disaster- my profiteroles didn't rise in the oven! So instead I broke them into little pieces, mixed them with custard, and added the toffee to make one big pudding. Pretty? Not. But amazingly, tingglingly, lip-lickingly, eye-closingly, heard-poundingly, scrumptious? I've had to hire a sky writer to write "YES" in big enough letters.


One of the things I thought of when first making these was that Ane (the custard guzzling thing) would love LOVE LOVE these. I've waited for over a month to make these for her- and finally I had my chance. This time, my profiteroles rose beautifully, the custard was a velvety creamy caramel- like one would describe how Halle Berry looks? The toffee was sticky and super sweet. I actually found this combination really overpoweringly sweet (the toffee would keep kids up all night)- but Ane, the dessert superhero- absolutely loved it. I kept meaning to take photos of her eating these, but completely forgot when we actually sat down to eat- really kicking myself now..


Nigella's Profiteroles
From How To Be A Domestic Goddess

Profiteroles:

350 ml water
150f unsalted butter, in chunks
pinch of salt
200 g cake flour
4 large eggs

1) Preheat oven to 200 C, and line 2 baking sheets with wax paper, silicone or whatever you use.
2) Put water, butter and salt in a saucepan, and heat on medium until the water is almost boiling and butter has melted. While it's heating up, sieve the flour into a bowl.
3) Pour the mixture into the flour, and whisk in energetically.
4) Pour mixture back into the saucepan, and stir on the heat until the dough is nice and smooth, forming a ball and coming away from the sides.
5) Transfer the dough to a bowl, and now beat in the eggs one by one using your dough hook attachment. VERY IMPORTANT: You have to beat the steam out of the dough- I recommend using and electric beater.
6) Put the mixture, which should be pipeable but a bit firm, into a piping bag, and pipe drops onto the baking pans. The should be the side of half an egg.
7) Bake for 15 minutes, or until golden and crisp.
8) When you take them out of the oven, make sure to prick all of them to let the steam out. Put on the cooling rack to cool.

Custard:

250 ml milk
250 ml cream
6 large egg yolks
100g castor sugar
30g cake flour
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 tblspn caster sugar
2 tsp water

1) Heat the milk and cream in a saucepan.
2) In the meantime, beat the eggs with the sugar until creamy then add the flour.
3) Add the heated cream mixture to the egg mixture, pour into your saucepan, and heat gently while stirring until it thickens. Add the vanilla extract and set aside.
4) Mix the sugar and water in a non-stick pan, and heat on high heat until the sugar turns brown.
5) Whilst whisking the cream mixture continuously, add the caramel to the mixture.
6) Leave this to cool. Once the profiteroles and custard are cool, cut round holes in the profiteroles bottoms, and pipe in the custard- don't be shy- more custard = more delicion!

Toffee:

6 tblsp Muscovado sugar
4 tblsp castor sugar
100g unsalted butter
300g golden syrup
4 tblspn cream

1) Put all the ingredients except the cream into a saucepan, bring to the boil, and simmer for 5 minutes.
2) Use about half the sauce to pour over the profiteroles while building a tower- it's so sticky that it does wonders for stablity.
3) Mix cream with the leftover sauce, to serve on the side.

Next time- same custard (am in LOVE with it) but maybe a chocolate ganache topping!!

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