Profiteroles

Making choux pastry has been on my baking 'to do' list for a while now and I kept bumping it down the list as I'd heard that it was difficult and was quite frankly a little intimidated by it - don't be, it is much easier than it seems and well worth the effort. Growing up my Mum always took profiteroles as a plate for dessert but being a busy woman with four kids she usually used store bought cases, when I was put on dessert for Easter lunch I decided to carry on the tradition of having profiteroles by making everything from scratch. Scouring the net for good recipes you'll find that the basic choux pastry recipe if much of a muchness, you can use it to make profiteroles, cream puffs, eclairs or savoury gougeres. 

Ingredients:
Choux Pastry
1/3 cup water
40g butter, at room temperature, cubed
1/3 cup plain flour, sifted
2 eggs, at room temperature
Vegetable oil, to grease

Creme Pastisierre 
1 3/4 cups milk
1 teaspoon vanilla paste
3 egg yolks
1/3 cup  caster sugar
1/3 cup plain flour, sifted
*This requires cooling so you may want to make it in advance

Chocolate ganache
150 grams milk or dark chocolate, chopped into small chunks
75ml cream
1 tablespoon butter

Method:
Preheat oven to 200°C. Spray or brush a baking tray with oil to lightly grease or line with a silicon mat if you have one.
To make the choux pastry place water and butter in a saucepan over medium heat, make sure your butter is cut into small cubes, you don't want the water boiling before your butter is fully melted. Stir over the heat for 3-4 minutes or until butter melts and mixture just comes to the boil.
Remove from the heat and add all the flour to the butter mixture at once and use a wooden spoon to beat until well combined. Place over low heat and cook, stirring, for 1-2 minutes or until the mixture forms a ball and begins to come away from the side of the saucepan.
Set aside for about 5 minutes to cool slightly.
Whisk 1 egg in a small bowl and set aside. Whisk the remaining egg in a small bowl, then add it to the flour mixture, beating well with a wooden spoon. Gradually add a little of the reserved egg and beat until the mixture just falls from the spoon but still holds its shape.
Spoon teaspoons full of the mixture onto tray, about 3cm apart (you will get 20-30). Alternatively, use a pastry bag fitted with a 1- 1.5cm diameter plain piping nozzle to pipe the profiteroles onto the baking tray.
Brush the tops with a little of the remaining egg, flattening any peaks.
Bake in preheated oven for 25 minutes or until the profiteroles are puffed and golden.
Remove from oven and turn the oven off. Using a skewer or a small knife, pierce the base of each profiterole to release the steam. Return the profiteroles to the oven and leave them for 15 minutes to dry out.
Remove the profiteroles from the oven and transfer to a wire rack to cool.
For the creme patissiere, warm milk and the vanilla paste in a saucepan, remove from the heat and set aside.
Whisk yolks and sugar in a bowl until thick. Whisk in flour, then milk mixture.
Return to pan and cook, whisking, over low heat for 5 minutes or until mixture thickens.
Transfer mixture to a bowl and cover surface with plastic wrap. Place in the fridge to chill.
Spoon creme patissiere in a piping bag fitted with a 5mm metal nozzle.
Push nozzle into the base of each profiterole and fill with creme patissiere.
Finally for the chocolate ganache, place the chocolate, cream and butter into a heat proof bowl.
Place the bowl over a saucepan of simmering water, ensure that the water does not touch the bottom of your bowl.
Stir occasionally until well combined.
Remove from the heat and allow to cool and thicken for about 10 minutes before dunking the top of each profiterole in the chocolate.

I would really encourage you to give making your own choux pastry from scratch and turning said choux pastry into these delectable profiteroles! They are sure to impress at your next function.

Sarah’s Soda Bread

Simon and I share our house with our flatmate Sarah, who is from Ireland.  She had a pang of homesickness the other week and was craving the comforts of home, so she wanted some Soda Bread.  I’d never heard of Soda Bread before, but offered to make it for her and went about doing some research.  I ended up shirking the responsibility of making it off onto Simon (I’ve been really lazy when it comes to baking lately) as he loves to make bread; so he gave this a go on the weekend, excitedly assisted by Sarah.

Soda bread is really quick and easy to make.  We made ours using a ‘cake’ method, where you mix all the ingredients up and bake it in the oven.  You can also make Soda Bread by making your dough, then cutting it into ‘farls’ (a word meaning ‘four parts’) and frying each segment until it is cooked through, then piecing all the farls together to get your round bread look.  There isn’t any yeast in this bread, so you don’t need to wait around for it to prove either.

To me, Soda Bread is kind of like a massive scone.  I ate my pieces simply buttered and with jam.  However, in Ireland I think it is more a savoury thing – Sarah cooked up some eggs and ate them on the bread with HP sauce and I’ve also read about it being something you can serve with stew to soak up the gravy.  It was pretty yum; we’ll be making some again and I think we will give some other Irish baking a go soon.

Ingredients:
3 cups flour
1 ½ teaspoons baking soda
1 ½ teaspoons salt
1 ½ cups buttermilk

Method:
Preheat the oven to 180°C.  Line a baking tray with baking paper.
In a large bowl, stir the dry ingredients together. Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients and add 1 cup of the buttermilk.  Combine dry ingredients and buttermilk with a fork, gradually adding more of the remaining buttermilk until a soft dough is formed.
Knead the dough lightly on a floured surface for 1 minute.  Form into a slightly flattened circle. Place the dough on the prepared tray.  Mark a large 2cm deep ‘X’ with a sharp knife and bake the soda bread for 35-45 minutes. The bread is ready when it is golden and sounds hollow when tapped on the bottom.
Once the bread is cooked, remove from the oven.  To serve, but into segments, then cut the segments in half horizontally before topping with whatever you fancy.