Coffee Profiteroles 8.02 Spring

“Uh, Lorelai, maybe you can pay attention here. This concerns you.” “You've got my full attention, Taylor.” “I believe that bag of profiteroles you snuck in has at least part of your attention.” “Well, develop a creamy filling, and I'm all yours.”

Ingredients: 

For the choux pastry: 

• 7 tbsp unsalted butter

• 1 cup water

• 1 cup all-purpose flour

• 4 eggs at room temperature

• ⅛ tsp salt

For the coffee whipped cream:

• 2 cups heavy cream

• ½ cup powdered sugar

• 1 tsp vanilla

• 1 tbsp instant coffee granules dissolved in 1 tbsp hot water

For the topping: 

• ¼ cup cocoa powder

• ¼ cup powdered sugar

Directions: 

1. Place a medium saucepan over medium heat and add the butter. When the butter has just melted, add the water and let it simmer (small bubbles but not boiling).

2. Once the mixture has reached a simmer, add the flour and stir vigorously until a smooth ball of dough has formed.

3. Remove from heat and allow the dough to cool for about 10 minutes. Do not remove the dough from the warm skillet. Simply take the skillet off the heat.

4. While the dough cools, preheat the oven to 420 degrees F.

5. Transfer dough to a piping bag with a ½ inch tip and prepare a cookie sheet with parchment paper or a silicone mat. 

6. Pipe the dough into small circles about 2 tbsp in size onto the prepared cookie sheet (you’ll likely need 2-3 or bake in batches). 

7. Smooth down any peaks with a lightly wet finger. 

8. Bake at 420 F for 15 minutes then remove the trays from the oven and reduce the heat to 350 F. 

9. Gently pierce the puffs with a knife or a skewer then return to the oven to bake for an additional 10 minutes at 350 F. 

10. Remove from the oven and allow the puffs to cool completely. 

11. While they cool, prepare the filling by whipping the heavy cream, powdered sugar, and vanilla until soft peaks form. Carefully add in the coffee and continue to mix until stiff peaks form. 

12. Slice the cooled puffs in half and pipe or spoon about 1 tbsp of the coffee whipped cream onto the half of the pastries then place the other halves on top to create a sandwich. 

13. Use a fine mesh sieve to dust the profiteroles with cocoa powder and powdered sugar 

This soft, light French pastry is my third dish for Spring! Lorelai brings a bag of them to the town meeting and gets in trouble with Taylor. The rules of when you can bring food to a town meeting seem arbitrary, but if you ask me, I would bring these to every town meeting! 

Y’all know any time I can incorporate coffee into a dish, I’m going to do it. So the filling for these is a coffee-flavored whipped cream. A lot of people were upset that I topped these pastries with powdered sugar and cocoa powder instead of a chocolate ganache, but you don’t HAVE to! In fact, the Wikipedia photo when you look up profiteroles does not have them with a chocolate ganache. And the truth is, when I made these, I had just run out of chocolate from another dish I had made, so I wasn’t able to make a ganache in time. Oh well!

Happy cooking from the Hollow!

Catch up on my last A Year in the Life dish here!