Profiteroles

If you're good and follow me on twitter, then you might've noticed that last week I made Profiteroles. Yes, I'm sorry I bombarded your twitter feeds with my pictutures, I was just SO happy with the result. So much so in fact, that I'm going to show you all again now, et voila...

As usual I used someone elses recipe and adapted it slightly for my own ego, and this week was the turn of James Martin. The main bones of the recipe were taken from his 2006 book Desserts which can be bought from any good book store or Amazon if you click the link here (It's actually a very good recipe book and if you're a fan of James Martin's Saturday Kitchen, then you'll find a lot of his favourite puds to try for yourself)

Back to the Profiteroles though... Here's my recipe.

Ingredients

(Serves 4 - 6, makes around 15 Profiteroles)

Choux Pastry

85g Salted Butter

4 tsp Caster Sugar

115g Plain Flour

Pinch of Salt

3 medium eggs (beaten)

Filling

600ml Double Cream

Method

1. Pre-Heat oven to 180C and line a tray with baking paper

2. To make the pastry, place the butter and sugar into a large pan with 200ml cold water and place on a low heat to melt the butter.

3. Once the butter is melted increase the heat and tip the flour in all at once.

4.Remove from the heat and quickly beat the mixture until it forms a smooth paste.

5. When the mixture is smooth put the pan back on the heat and stir with a spatula for one minute.

6. Take off the heat and immediately add the eggs, one at a time, mixing them in with a spatula.

7. Beat the mixture until it's smooth and glossy, with a soft dropping consistency.

8. Dip a teaspoon into warm water and use it to spoon out the profiterole mixture onto the baking sheet into even balls, making sure to smooth over any rough edges with a wet finger to make sure your mix doesn't catch.

9. Place into the oven and leave to bake for 15 - 20 minutes until golden brown (Slowly begin to increase the oven up to 200C after 10 minutes)

10. Remove from oven and carefully prick a hole into the bases of your profiteroles. Turn them over and return to the oven for a further 5 minutes.

11. Remove and leave to cool.

12. To make the filling, simply whip up the cream and place it into a piping bag with a circle nozzle. Pipe in through the hole in the bottom, until the profiteole feels firm.

13. Display as desired and cover with chocolate sauce (packet if you like or make your own)

And it's as simple as that really. If you have a go yourself, let me know how you get on, I'd love to see some pictures!

Until next time,

Happy Baking!

X

Christmassy Creations: Mince Pies

I hope you all had very merry Christmas' filled with lots of good food and wine - I certainly did!

Last week, to get into the festive spirit, I started my seasonal baking. So in the first of this two part post, I will show you how to make Mince Pies!


Mince Pies

For short crust pastry, I always like to use the BBC Food recipe, which I find produces the best pastry (Here's the LINK or if you prefer I've printed it below) but if you can't be bothered, then you can always use frozen!

Ingredients

• 125g/4oz plain flour
  

• pinch of salt
  

• 55g/2oz butter, cubed

• 30-45ml/2-3 tbsp cold water

Method

1. Put the flour and salt in a large bowl and add the cubes of butter.

2. Use your fingertips to rub the butter into the flour until you have a mixture that resembles coarse breadcrumbs with no large lumps of butter remaining. Try to work quickly so that it does not become greasy.

3. Using a knife, stir in just enough of the cold water to bind the dough together.

4. Wrap the dough in clingfilm and chill for 10-15 minutes before using.

5. Alternatively using a food processor, put the flour, butter and salt in the food processor and pulse until the fat is rubbed into the flour.

6. With the motor running, gradually add the water through the funnel until the dough comes together. Only add enough water to bind it and then stop.

7. Wrap the dough in clingfilm as before and chill for 10-15 minutes before using.

So that's the Pastry...

- After these stages are complete, take the dough from the fridge and roll on a lightly floured surface until about 5mm thick.

- Cut out rolled dough with a circular cutter (these will form the base of each pie) and place each circle into a section of a pre-greased bun tray.

- For the filling you can either make your own, or if you're like me, you can buy it from the supermarket - For these I used Waitrose's own mincemeat and I can highly reccommend it! So whatever filling you have, take it and fill the little pastry cases.

- Next the tops. Take the left over pastry and re roll it and cut using a holly stencil so that each pie has two holly leaves for topping.

- Place the 'leaves' on top and finish with a pastry berry.

- Brush tops with milk or beaten egg and put in the oven at 180C (FAN) for 20 minutes.

- Leave to cool for 15 minutes and enjoy!


So that's how you make mince pies - If you give the recipe a go, let me know how they turn out, in the meantime look out for my follow up blog post on my Christmas Cupcakes!

Happy Holidays and Happy Baking!

X