Profiteroles with Custard

(35 – 40 pieces)

Dough:

• 125 ml milk

• 150 g all-purpose flour

• 125 g water

• 150 g sugar

• 1/4 tsp coarse salt

• 100 g (7 tbsp) unsalted butter, cut into small pieces

• 5 large eggs, at room temperature

Filling (custard):

• 450 ml + 50 ml milk

• 1 tbsp vanilla sugar

• 6 egg yolks

• 2 tbsp all-purpose flour

• 150 g sugar

• 1 vanilla bean

• ice

1 Preheat the oven to 200 ⁰ C.

2 In a medium saucepan, combine together the water, milk, butter, salt and sugar. Place the saucepan over medium high heat and bring to a boil. Add the flour to the mixture and beat vigorously with a wooden spoon for several seconds, until the dough is smooth, and pulls away from the sides of the pan.

3 Remove the pan from the heat, and form a ball out of the dough. Cool the dough for a couple of minutes. Beat in the eggs one at a time, until smooth and glossy, 1 to 2 minutes.

4 Place the dough in the pastry bag. (Alternatively, you can use a spoon to form the puffs.) Grease 2 rimmed baking sheets or line with baking parchment, and sprinkle a little bit of water on top of them. Pipe the desired shapes onto the baking sheets.

5 For a standard profiterole shape, bake for 10 minutes at 200 °C, then lower the heat to 175 °C and continue baking for another 10 minutes, or until puffed up, golden brown, and firm to the touch. Keep in the turned off oven for another 5 minutes. Cool completely on a wire rack.

6 For the cream filling, combine in a small bowl the sugar and egg yolks. In a medium saucepan over medium high heat, combine 450 ml milk with vanilla sugar and vanilla seeds (previously distracted from the vanilla bean). Bring to a boil. Vigorously beating with a wooden spoon for all times, carefully add the yolk mixture to the milk. When the mixture begins to boil, add all flour (previously sifted) at once and continue beating. While mixing at all times, cook for 2 minutes, then remove from the heat for 20-30 seconds to cool a bit, and then return to the heat for another 2 minutes. When the cream thickens, remove it from the heat, and mix in the rest (50 ml) of cold milk in it.

7 Transfer the cream into a bowl and place it into a bigger one, previously filled with ice, for about half an hour to cool down. Before transferring the bowl with cream to the fridge, cover its surface with a plastic wrap.

8 To fill the profiteroles with cream, either cut off their tops (most popular way to fill them), or make a small hole on the bottom and use a cooking syringe to fill them. When filled, profiteroles can be decorated with melted dark chocolate. Let the chocolate harden, then serve with mint leaves.

My Tips:

• Using a brush or your finger, moisture the peeks of profiteroles with a bit of water before backing them, and sprinkle a bit more over the whole tray.

• After forming profiteroles, the dough can be frozen on a tray in these shapes, and then collected into freezer bags and sealed.