Profiteroles, People!

Years ago, in the quaint Italian town of Vietri sul Mare, I experienced something that changed my life. It didn’t happen in a 10th-century cathedral, or on a cliff overlooking the Tyrrhenian Sea. Nope, it happened in a dessert shop called Eco del Mare, where I sampled an amazing treat.

Mesmerized by the many options, I just chose something that looked like doughnut holes with Magic Shell on top.

We rushed these babies back to our little dungeon of an Airbnb up the street and gave them a taste.

They were incredible – like an eclair with chocolate sauce and whipped cream. After some research, I discovered they’re called profiteroles, and while the ones in Europe are filled with custard, the ones in America are instead filled with ice cream. And now, I will be attempting to recreate my experience from all those years ago – American style. Today’s recipe comes from an old issue of Cook’s Illustrated, of which my parents are big fans. In fact, Doug is such a dork that he even wrote in to ask a question about pasta because getting your question published earned you a free year’s subscription.

Anyway, part of what makes Cook’s Illustrated a good resources for recipes is that they test their recipes countless times until they have, in their eyes, perfected both ingredients and technique. As a result, their recipes are meticulous, but yield fantastic results. And with something like profiteroles, you want to be meticulous. However, due to its meticulosity, I cannot describe the entire recipe so if you want to attempt this project, hit the comments below and I will email you a scan of it or something.

Anyway, here are our ingredients for the pastry itself. Pretty simple: butter, eggs, milk, water, flour, and sugar. We’re gonna make what’s called a choux pastry. That’s most likely French.

Two eggs plus an egg white: whisk.

Throw our ingredients sans our flour and eggs into a saucepan and bring to a full boil.

Immediately remove the saucepan from heat, and stir in flour until combined. Put it back on the heat and keep stirring until it looks like wet sand and it registers between 175 and 180 degrees.

Once we reach that temperature, transfer it into a Cuisinart fast and process for 10 seconds to cool it. Pour your whisked eggs in slowly while the Cuisinart runs. This part of the process was mildly stressful.

When you’re done, it should look like this:

Now, transfer your paste to a pastry bag and start squeezing out little plops.

When we’re done, it’s into the oven for 15 minutes on 425. Then, take the temp down to 375 for 8 minutes. Finally, turn off the oven, extract your puffs, give them a slit on the side, and return to the oven for 45 minutes. Make sure to prop your oven open with a wooden spoon! Cook’s seriously tells us we have to do this.

Maya and I were both very concerned that our little puffs would come out too small, but much to our surprise, that was not the case.

Next we gotta make our chocolate sauce. Take heavy cream, corn syrup, butter, and salt to a boil.

Chop your nice, dark chocolate into small pieces.

As soon as our mixture is boiling, take it off the heat and in goes the chocolate.

Off the heat, cover the pan and let it sit for five minutes.

All that’s left to do is scoop our ice cream and assemble.

Cut our profiteroles in half, fill them with ice cream, and drizzle with chocolate sauce!

How are they, you ask? The answer is really fricking good. The profiteroles have a light, fluffy interior that reminded me of a croissant. I’m attributing this to the French choux pastry process. The chocolate is rich and dark, and the ice cream is delicious. The only downside of this dish is that you have to bite directly into the ice cream. Brain freezes abound. And Maya can testify that it is a messy affair.

Did they match the ones I had back in Italy? No, these ones had ice cream while the ones back in the Old Country had custard. Were they still the bomb? Yes. Would I prefer these over the ones filled with custard? Uhh, I don’t think so. The experience of biting into ice cream is not something I am tremendously fond of, so if I had my druthers about me I would opt for the European version.

Stay tuned for the next issue: A Very Zev Thanksgiving…