Those Cakes We Like … Don’t Want Any Figgy Pudding, Thank You.

All I want for Christmas is choux.

Obvious pun is obvious. (Image courtesy of ziggywiggy)

Happy Holidays to you all. I know some of us have felt like there isn’t much to celebrate at this moment in time, and many of us are bracing ourselves for what is to come after January 20. I can’t change what the future has in store for the USA and the rest of the world at the hands of the Tangerine Terrorist, but for now, Joe Biden remains the president, the festive season is here, and we can gather those we love close and hold them extra tight. And chocolate still exists. As does choux pastry. So today, we’re making profiteroles, and chocolate ganache, and whipped cream with lots of Irish Cream in it. And damn it, we ARE going to assemble all of this into a jaunty festive wreath and cover it in edible sparkles!

Profiteroles have been around for a long, long time. The first recorded mention of them is in Francois Rabelais’s book Gargantua, which was written in the 1500s. These delicious pastries are considered a classic French recipe, however they actually came to France via the chefs of Catherine de Medici, who prepared profiteroles as one of the dishes for Catherine’s wedding to Henry II of France on 28 October 1533. The profiteroles of the 16th century were not quite what we think of when we consider profiteroles now; the recipe was perfected by French chefs, particularly Antonin Carême, in the 19th century. It was Carême who added the whipped cream filling, and what was originally a caramel topping. He was also the one responsible for developing the profiterole tower that is now known as the croquembouche. I don’t know if he ever had the idea of turning them into a festive wreath though. So the profiterole came to France from Italy, where it was perfected by one of the most influential chefs in French cooking. The rest is history.

Profiteroles are one of those recipes which are deceptively easy to make. They look like they will involve some complicated pastry techniques, but all you need to do is melt butter and sugar together in some water before adding your flour, and then whisking in the egg. There’s no raising agent other than the egg in this recipe, it’s just regular all-purpose flour; the profiteroles will puff up nicely in the oven. I’m choosing to fill mine with whipped cream laced with plenty of Irish Cream, a flavour I consider to be an integral part of the festive period, but you can fill them with Chantilly Cream, or any flavour of cream you wish, or even a light custard such as crème patissiere or crème diplomate. There’s no reason you couldn’t cover the finished profiteroles with the traditional caramel if you wanted, although I’ve opted for the luxurious comfort of chocolate ganache — we all need a little comfort in these uncertain times.

For those of you who need to count your carbohydrates, this recipe will make 24 profiteroles at 27g of carbohydrates per profiterole, or 648g for the whole batch — I will not tell you not to eat the entire batch all at once.

Your Equipment

Digital kitchen scales

Saucepan

Wooden spoon

Electric whisk and mixing bowl, or stand mixer

2 or 3 baking sheets

Baking parchment

Piping bags

Piping nozzle with a small, round hole

Cake board

Your Ingredients

For the profiteroles:

Put them together and what have you got? Delicious choux pastry filled with Baileys whipped cream, that's what.

50g unsalted butter

150 ml water

2 tbsp granulated (or superfine, if you can get it) sugar — measure this out and take 2 tsp from it. Set the rest aside for use later.

75g all-purpose flour

2 eggs

For the filling:

300 ml heavy cream

7 tbsp Irish Cream (Baileys) or 1/4 tsp vanilla essence if you’d prefer to avoid alcohol

Remainder of the sugar you measured out earlier.

For the toppings:

200g dark chocolate

100 ml heavy cream

25g white chocolate

25g milk chocolate

Decorative sprinkles

The Important Bit

Preheat your oven to 400F (220C).

Cut your butter into rough cubes and add it to your saucepan along with 2 tsp of sugar and 150 ml water. Heat gently on a low heat until the butter has melted and the sugar has dissolved.

Apply heat gently at first. Then not so gently.

Now turn the heat up and bring the mixture to a boil. Turn off the heat and add the flour, mix vigorously with the wooden spoon until the dough comes away from the edge of the pan.

Leave the hot dough to cool for 5 minutes then whisk in the eggs a little at a time using a hand whisk, or a stand mixer on medium-high speed. You may not need to use all of the eggs, keep a close eye on the pastry dough and stop adding eggs once the dough appears smooth and glossy.

You're looking for a smooth, glossy, loose dough.

Transfer the pastry dough into a piping bag (no nozzle this time) and cut roughly ½ an inch off the end of the piping bag — I recommend having a supply of disposable piping bags handy for recipes like this, it makes life so much easier.

Line your baking trays with baking parchment and lightly splash them with cold water (this will help the pastry dough to rise).

Pipe circular blobs of dough of roughly 1 inch diameter onto your baking parchment. They will roughly double in size, so leave plenty of space between them.

Place your profiteroles into the oven and leave them to bake for 15-18 minutes. They should be well risen and a lovely, golden-brown colour.

Little balls of gold. Stop giggling.

Place the profiteroles onto a wire rack to cool.

Give your mixing bowl and whisk or stand mixer a clean (in fact, clean up all your used equipment) and then whisk your heavy cream until it is still soft but forms stiff peaks (overwhipping is how you make butter — nobody wants butter-filled profiteroles). Add in your sugar and Irish Cream (or vanilla essence) and then whisk on high speed for another minute.

Place your piping nozzle into a clean piping bag and trim the bag to fit. Fill your piping bag with whipped cream and use the piping nozzle to pierce the side of the profiterole and then pipe in the cream until it just starts to overflow. Be careful here as too much filling could burst the profiterole. Repeat this until you have filled all the profiteroles.

In your saucepan (which you should have cleaned earlier) gently heat 100 ml of heavy cream and then add your dark chocolate. Stir with a wooden spoon until it becomes thick and glossy.

Look at the shine on that!

Dip the top of each profiterole into your freshly made chocolate ganache and assemble them in a wreath shape on your cake board. You may need to reheat the ganache a little if it starts to set while you’re still dipping your profiteroles.

Take the remainder of the ganache and pour it around your profiterole wreath. This will set and hold the wreath shape.

Melt your milk chocolate and transfer to another piping bag. Snip off the very tip of the piping bag. Now drizzle the milk chocolate over the profiterole wreath. Repeat this step using the white chocolate.

The weather forecast for today predicted a light drizzle, I don't think this is what they meant.

Now go crazy and decorate your wreath with sparkly sprinkles. If you’re feeling really fancy, a nice bow, or a short string of fairy lights could also be incorporated.

Go wild with the decorations!

Congratulations, you should now have a delicious, showstopper of a festive dessert. I don’t think anybody will be demanding figgy pudding after being presented with this.

Happy Holidays to you all. I wish you comfort, love, and joy this Festive Season. Stay warm, stay safe, and if you can afford to Donate once to Wonkette please do, it all helps Trix keep this little place going.

See you all in the New Year!