Thursday, May 7, 2009

Cream Puffs/ Profiteroles


Yummy! This is also one of my favourites.
Choux pastry (pâte à choux) contains only butter, water, flour and eggs. No raising agent. Its raising agent is the high water content, which creates steam during baking, puffing out the pastry. That's why it requires a very hot oven Gas mark 6 or 7.

I rediscovered this when I was flicking through the pages of my recipe book. I am not sure where I copied it from but I have tried it long, long time ago. It looked just like the photo which I googled from Delia Online. Yes Delia Smith. She is an English cook and TV presenter. She was famous in those days.

Delia's version of profiterole has added 1 level teaspoon of caster sugar. It's a variation for those with sweet tooth. This is my version.

Ingredients: (makes 30)
1 cup of water
1/2 cup butter
1 cup flour (sifted)
4 eggs (beaten)
2 tsp cocoa powder

Heat water & butter in a pan until rolling boil then turn down to low heat.
Add sifted flour all at once, stirring vigorously until mixture leaves sides of pan clean.
Remove from heat and cool slightly.
Add beaten egg a little at a time, beating thoroughly after each addition until you have a smooth paste.
Beat in sifted cocoa.
Put 1 tsp paste on greased baking sheet on an oven tray about 1 inch apart.
Bake in preheated oven 425 Fahrenheit/ 220 Celcius for 10 minutes.
Reduce to moderate heat (350-400 F/180-200 C), bake for furtehr 40 minutes or until crispand  golden colour.
Remove from oven.
Make a small slit at sides of each puff to let steam escape.
Return to oven for afew minutes to dry out.
The allow to cool on a wire rack.
Then fill the puffs with whipped cream and pour melted chocolate on top and serve immediately.

Tips of the day:
Cup measure is a convenient way to bake but some recipes use other measurements such as ounce, gram or mililitre. After researching on the internet I found the equivalet measures for the cup measure for various ingredients.

Liquid
1 cup of water = 250 ml water

Flour
Cake flour = 114g
White flour = 120g
Bread flour = 130g
Wheat flour = 140g
Note: This measurement requires one to spoon the flour into the cup, not scooping.

Butter
1 cup of butter = 227g = 8 oz
1/2 cup of butter = 113g = 4 oz = and this is equivalent to 1 stick of butter.
1 tbs of butter = 0.5oz

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