Name: Profiteroles Recipe
Prep time: 1 h
Cook time: 50 min
Total time: 1 h 50 min
Yield: 12
Cuisine: French
Ingredients: ½ cup of flour (60g); ¼ teaspoon of salt (6 g); 1 tablespoon sugar (30g); 5 tablespoon butter (75g); ½ cup of water (120 ml); 2 large eggs, lightly beaten; 12 oz bag of chocolate chips (340 g); 2/3 heavy cream (160 ml); 1 tablespoon honey (15 ml); 1 teaspoon of vanilla (15 ml); Ice Cream of Choice; Lightly toasted almonds

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This classic profiteroles recipe is a great dessert recipe for any special occasion like New Year's Eve or Christmas. They are a classic dessert at any French bistro and making them at home is actually easier than you think and always gets rave reviews from guests!

The choux pastry shells can also be made ahead of time and frozen. Then all you have to do is pop them in the oven to reheat and crisp up! Fill them with ice cream and drizzle with my homemade chocolate sauce and you're done!

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Profiteroles can be filled with whipped cream or custard but I find the most traditional way you'll find them in just about any bistro in France is served with vanilla ice cream and topped with warm, dark chocolate sauce. This combination cannot be beat.

STEP 1: Make the Choux Pastry

Choux pastry is the basis of profiteroles and is the same dough used to make other wonderful French desserts like eclairs, Paris-Brest, or Gougeres. It's fairly simple to do if you follow a few key tips highlighted below.

You'll begin by adding butter and water to a large saucepot. Once this mixture begins to boil, add the dry ingredients.

Cook the butter/flour mixture long enough so that when you stir it with a wooden spoon, it pulls apart from the sides of the pot and forms a ball on the bottom of the pot.

Preventing The Shells From Deflating

If the dough ball is not formed and you rush to add the eggs, the flour doesn't get a chance to cook long enough, making your choux pastry more unstable and likely to fall and deflate.

Once your dough ball has formed, turn off the heat and add the eggs, one at a time, stirring quickly in between each addition.
It's really important you allow each egg the ability to fully incorporate before adding the next, otherwise, it will be hard to combine them if you try to do it all together.
Try to avoid adding the eggs to the bottom of the pot, but rather add them on top of the dough ball, this will prevent your eggs from scrambling.

STEP 2: Pipe and Bake the Shells

Transfer your choux pastry to a pastry bag fitted with a ½ inch (13mm) round tip. Pipe your dough mounds on a parchment-lined cookie sheet.

Tip: Don't be concerned if your mounds look too small at this stage, choux pastry is known for its impressive ability to expand in the oven. These will double in size and height once baked.

Tip: Once your mounds are piped, tap the peaks down with a spoon that has been dipped in cold water. This will create nice round tops and prevent your tops from burning.

STEP 3: Cooling the Shells

Once your pastry shells are done baking, the second critical step is to slice a tiny incision in the side of each pastry shell and allow them to cool in the oven, with the oven door open a crack.

This will allow the pastry to dry out a bit inside and prevent your pastry shells from deflating.

Then you can go ahead and widen the incision to slice the shells ¾ of the way open. I prefer to cut them ¾ of the way open like a clamshell because the ice cream sits better inside the shell and the overall presentation will be prettier.

STEP 4: Make the Chocolate Sauce

The chocolate sauce is so easy to make. Even if you skip the pastry shells this is a fantastic chocolate sauce recipe that is great anytime over ice cream. Or to switch things up try my Peanut Butter Ice Cream Sauce. This would be great paired with some Homemade Salted Caramel Ice Cream inside the shells.

You'll combine semi-sweet chocolate chips and heavy cream, once the chips melt in the warm cream, whisk together until smooth. Then you'll add honey and vanilla extract.

Tip: for a richer chocolate flavor you can also add a shot of hot espresso to the chocolate sauce.

Make-Ahead Tips:

You can make the shells and after slicing them ¾ of the way open you have 2 options.

Option#1: Fill them with ice cream and place them in the freezer
Option #2: Place the empty shells in the freezer and moments before serving pop them on a baking tray at 300F(150C) until warmed through (5-10 minutes)

You can also make the chocolate sauce ahead of time too. Store it in a pyrex pitcher in the fridge and then microwave it at 30-second increments until hot and pourable.

STEP 5: Assemble and Serve!

You can serve 2-3 profiteroles per person. I prefer vanilla ice cream against the rich chocolate sauce, but really any ice cream is pretty good! I find a smaller 2-inch ice cream scoop works perfectly for profiteroles.

Tip: The chocolate sauce is rich so really a little goes a long way! I also find the presentation is prettier with just a drizzle. Then, top with raw sliced almonds, et voila!

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