profiteroles w/ chocolate sauce

If you were at the Christmas party last year, you'll remember seeing these. Soft, chewy, and rich Profiteroles with Chocolate Sauce. I recently won a couple of fantastic gifts from Esther at Ambitious Delicious(ness) and I decided to use the prizes I won to make this dessert. If you haven't visited her blog, you need to click on that white link right now and make a visit. It is an absolutely fantastic website so drop by and give her a hello!

The secret here is to properly bake the choux pastries. Make sure they have a nice, golden color on them and do not, I will repeat, DO NOT open the oven until they are ready to come out. We want the pastry to hold their shape so we can fill them with the cream. What happens if you take them out too early is that they'll fall losing their shape and the inside will be soggy and undercooked.

The Chantilly cream is extremely fast and delicious. All you need is a vanilla bean, good quality cream and some icing sugar. Done in literally 3 minutes.

Top the finished profiteroles with an amazing warm chocolate sauce and you're sure to please the guests at any kind of party (unless your name is Ryne and for some reason you don't like chocolate. I know, I didn't know these people existed either)

Profiteroles w/ Chocolate Sauce
Adapted from Gordon Ramsay, Serves 8-10

Ingredients (Choux):
- 125mL milk
- 200mL water
- 1 cup of AP flour
- 1 teaspoon sugar
- 0.5 teaspoon salt
- 6.5 tablespoons unsalted butter
- 4 eggs, lightly beaten

1) Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.
2) Combine the milk, water, sugar and salt in a sauce pan and place over low heat. Once the sugar and salt have dissolved, add the butter and bring to a boil.
3) Take the pan off the heat and add the flour. Mix with a wooden spoon until the mixture is smooth. Cool the mixture for a few minutes.
4) Add in the lightly beaten eggs one by one until you come out with a smooth, eggy mixture. It'll be a little thicker than a muffin batter if I had to describe the consistency.
5) Line a half sheet pan with parchment paper and fill a piping bag with the mixture.
6) Pipe the mixture onto the lined sheet pan making sure there's enough space between. They will rise and expand 1.5 to 2 times their size. If you have little tops or spikes on the top of the blobs, push them down with fingers wet with water. This will help prevent the tips from burning in the oven.
7) Bake for 18 - 22 minutes until golden brown. Do not open the oven before they're done.

Ingredients (Chantilly Cream):
- 300mL heavy whipping cream
- seeds from 1 vanilla pod
- 2 to 3 tablespoons of icing sugar
1) Add the heavy cream, vanilla seeds and icing sugar to a mixing bowl. Whisk until the consistency of a meringue (until the peaks hold shape). Taste the cream and add more icing sugar if desired. Keep in mind these will be served with a chocolate sauce when contemplating to add more sugar.
2) Add the cream to another piping bag and fill the profiteroles after they're out of the oven and cooled.
3) Don't throw away the vanilla pod! Make vanilla sugar by combining regular sugar with the vanilla pods!

Ingredients (Chocolate Sauce):
- 200g high quality dark chocolate (in my case the prize chocolate!)
- 2 tablespoons of butter
- 3 tablespoons of honey (3 honey packets courtesy of Esther)
- 125mL milk
1) Break the chocolate into pieces and melt over a double boiler.
2) Once the chocolate has melted, add the butter and honey and stir until combined.
3) Add the milk gradually until smooth and creamy.
4) Serve the chocolate sauce warm with the profiteroles dusted with icing sugar.