PROFITEROLES WITH CHERRY COULIS

Roses are red, violet are blue, I love cherries, how about you!!  The final VALENTINE month recipe is Profiteroles with Cherry Coulis!!

I’m a poet and I didn’t know it!!  ?????.  Sorry guys, I couldn’t resist.  Valentine’s Day just makes me romantic.  Ok, I’ll stop now!!  Ok, where were we..  Oh Profiteroles.   So the first time I had this amazing dessert was when I lived in Canada.  It was so delicious and I didn’t know that you could put ice cream in the middle of cream puffs!  Cream puffs is so amazing and versatile that you could put lots of things in the middle of it.  You can put ice cream like this profiteroles, you can fill it with pastry cream like my Croquembouche recipe, you can also put whipped cream or you can also fill it with custard.  Now my son is not a big fan of pastry cream, so do you know what he puts inside the cream puff?  Chocolate chips.  Just plain o chocolate chips.  Okie dokie…  Whatever works right!!

Now cream puff can also go the savory way.   It’s called Gougeres.   Oh man … Love Gougeres cause it has one of my favorite cheese, Gruyere.  I’m salivating just thinking about it!!  Now Gougeres is choux pastry that is savory.  But you can use the basic choux pastry and add savory filling into it.  It’s great for appetizers!

Making the choux pastry is not as complicated as one might think.  It’s a really fast dessert that you can whip up especially when company is coming over all of a sudden.  You can also make this as a snack for the kids as they come home from school, because you have most of the ingredients on hand and it only takes about half an hour to bake.  So here we go, let’s make Profiteroles!! 

Heat up the water, sugar, salt and butter in a saucepan.  Keep heating it up until the butter is all melted.  

Dump the flour into the saucepan and stir, stir, stir.  Don’t be shy and stir the flour into the water vigorously.   

After the stirring, you will see how the flour is all mixed together and pull apart from the pan.  You want to check if there are little dots of flour.  If you see it, just keep mixing until it’s all gone.  

Put the choux into your stand mixer and add eggs one by one.  Mix the mixture completely before you add the egg. 

The choux pastry should look like this after all the eggs are added.  Nice and glossy and just comes together.   

When you prepare the parchment paper, you want to sprinkle some water on top of the paper.  This is to steam the choux so that it will be nice and soft.   Using a piping bag, pipe the choux onto the parchment paper.  

Make mounds of choux spacing them apart on the parchment paper.  

Dipping your finger in water, gently dab the top of the mound and press them down.  This will prevent the burning of the tip of the choux.  

While the choux pastry is baking, go ahead and make the coulis.  It’s really really easy to do.  

Heat up the cherries, water, sugar, and lemon juice on a saucepan.  

Keep heating it up until the cherries becomes soft and the mixture becomes boiling.  

Add a little bit of cornstarch to thicken it up and then put it in a blender and voila!  You’ve got cherry coulis!!

After 30 minutes, you will have beautiful baked choux.  Pierce the top of the choux 

Fill the choux with a scoop of cherry ice cream.  You can fill it with any flavor you want but cherry is what I’m using for Valentine’s Day.

Then drizzle the cherry coulis on top. 

Oui, oui!!  Who could say no to this delicious and easy to make dessert!!!  Enjoy and Happy Valentine’s Month everyone!!!

Happy Baking!!!