Profiteroles, or as we call them in Dutch “soesjes”, could easily be my favorite food in the world. What’s not to love about this dish when it involves pastry, whipped cream, and melted chocolate? Just by writing this, my mouth starts to water.

To my pleasant surprise, it is incredibly easy to make! I’ve tried to make it before with my sister, but that didn’t turn out so great as we did not fully understand the baking method.

The first step is to make a converted roux. For those not familiar with a roux, it is basically the binding factor in sauces. It is made by melting butter, after which you gradually add an equal amount of flour whilst stirring. Once it has combined, and the starchy flavour of the flower has disappeared, you can add liquid. However, to make the choux pastry necessary for the profiteroles, the butter is being melted in the liquid. When the mixture starts boiling, lower the heat, and add the flour all at once while stirring strongly. As soon as the pastry forms a ball and lets loose of the pan, the converted roux is done!

This is actually the part where my sister and I gave up, just because we were so confused on what was happening and thought that we did something terribly wrong. Turns out, we were doing fine.

Anyways, now that I have made this misconception, you won’t have to.

Let the roux cool slightly in a mixing bowl before finishing the pastry. You do so by adding beaten eggs one by one. To me, this did not look very appealing, and again I thought I was doing something wrong. But keep on mixing in the egg until it’s completely incorporated in the roux.

Because in the end, the choux pastry will look silky and smooth.

The making of the profiteroles was not uneventful. First blunder took place while beating the eggs into the mixture. My whisk broke. I still had to beat 3 more eggs though, so it was kind of hard work. Don’t forget to check your kitchen equipment before making this! 😉

Another vital tip: make sure you have everything ready before baking. There’s probably loads of you who do this everytime you cook or bake something, but for the ones who are as disorganized in the kitchen as I am, I strongly advise you to do it this time. For instance, while I was ready to start filling the pastry shells with the cream, I found out that I did not have a piping bag. Panic ensued. However, I am a star in improvising now. See?

I used a ziplock bag, put the pastry in the bag, and cut a hole in the tip. There you are, a DIY piping bag. No nozzle or anything required. Works great. You need to make about 25 rounds of about 5 cm in diameter. Make sure there’s enough space in between as they enlarge while in the oven.

After the short baking time in the oven, the cream puffs should be slightly golden and slightly hollow on the inside.

For me, the easiest way to fill the puffs with the cream, was to make a slight incision in the bottom of the puffs. It should be big enough to either fit the nozzle of the piping bag, or the tip of the ziplock bag.

The chocolate sauce is basically just chocolate melted au-bain-marie. I also added a bit of milk, you could also add some cream if you prefer that. Just keep in mind that the puffs are already quite creamy. Adding cream or milk makes the sauce glisten a bit more, and adds to the volume of the sauce.

I served the profiteroles by using the method called croquembouche. This is a classic serving technique, which basically means that the cream puffs are carefully placed to create a tower. Traditionally, they are glued together by caramel strands. However, when making the amount of this recipe, it’s not necessary to do so. Just pile them up, pour over the chocolate sauce, and enjoy this heavenly dish.

You could decide to leave the chocolate sauce for what it is, and just serve the profiteroles as they are. They are perfect no matter what.

Let me know what you think :)!

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