Profiteroles (Cream Puffs) with Ganache

Have your stand mixer ready, fitted with a paddle. Have your eggs ready and cracked in a bowl. Have the flour weighed out and ready to go. Have a saucepan and a sturdy wooden spoon ready, too. Preheat your oven to 450 F.

Now add water, butter (no substitutions here, it HAS to be butter to work), salt and 1 tablespoon sugar to a saucepan and bring to a boil over medium heat.

Now get ready! Dump all the flour into your boiling mix and start stirring and beating it around like crazy. You do this until a uniform ball forms and all the “mess” comes away from the side of the saucepan.

Continue to cook it for another 1-2 minutes, stirring it around, just to dry it out a bit. It should now have the consistency of playdough.

Transfer the hot dough to your mixing bowl and beat for about 2 minutes, just to let the dough cool down a bit. This is necessary so the eggs don’t scramble once we add those!

After the dough is warm but no longer hot, start adding an egg at the time under constant beating. Beat on low and increase to medium for a few seconds. One egg should be completely incorporated before adding the next, and your dough should be nice and smooth.

Now this next step is up to your estimation. After the 4th egg has been added and incorporated, you need to check for consistency. The dough should be very smooth and shiny, it should come off the paddle slowly and leave a little peak at the end. If the dough seems too stiff, crack another egg and add a little of the egg white. Do this until you reach the desired consistency.

Now that’s done, you can do this two ways. You could place the dough in a piping bag, fitted with a star tip and pipe little mounds onto a silicone or parchment paper lined cookie sheet. Or you could take two spoons to make little balls, or you could use a very small ice cream/cookie scoop.

Whichever way you get them onto your cookie sheet, once you have them on there, place them in the oven and bake for 8-10 minutes for smaller-sized balls, or 12-15 minutes for the cookie-scoop-sized ones. Then turn down the heat to 375 F and bake for another 15-20 minutes, depending on their size.

To test if they are done, they should be a gorgeous golden brown, and feel firm when you gently squeeze the sides. And of course they should have puffed up considerably! But be sure not to check them too early, or they might collapse when you open the oven door!

Once they are done, place on a cookie rack to cool.

Add the remaining 2 tablespoons sugar to 1 cup whipping cream and beat until stiff. Add the whipped cream to a piping bag fitted either with a long narrow filling tip.
Fill each profiterole with whipping cream. If you’d prefer, you could also break the profiteroles in half and pipe the filling inside, then place the lid back on top.

You can now place these little beauties in the freezer, freeze them solid and then transfer them into bags. When you need them, just take a few out, leave them sitting at room temperature for about 15 minutes and they are ready to go.

Or you could make the ganache to dip the tops in to take them over the top.

To make the ganache, place the remaining 1/2 cup of the whipping cream in an oven proof dish and microwave until very hot. Break up the chocolate and pour the hot cream over it, stirring constantly until all the chocolate is melted.

Dip the profiteroles into the chocolate ganache.

You can do that even once they are frozen. It defrosts them faster and sets up the ganache faster, too.

And then enjoy!