profiteroles with hot chocolate sauce
Well..you wouldn’t think that judging from the picture, would you? The profiteroles in the photo seem perfectly fine, I hear you say. Right shape and all. You are not wrong my friends: these lovely profiteroles with hot chocolate sauce I served last night to a couple of friends (Mark and Anne, to be precise, who had come to do a walk with us. Only I had double booked myself and had to go to my Italian book group instead. AWWW! So no walk for me. Anyway I said I would mention them personally as Anne has been following my blog for a while) were rather good BUT they were my second attempt. The first batch, done at 8.30 in the morning, was a DISASTER (see picture below) as they came out of the oven flat as pancakes. I followed DElia Smith recipe (click here) , which I had done successfully once previously, but something went VERY wrong during the procedure. I now know what. Namely: the mixture was far too liquidy. I knew when I spooned it on the tray and it spread straight away that something hadn’t quite worked but I tried all the same JUST IN CASE. I should have followed my instinct and chucked the lot in the bin at the early stage (hadn’t I watched enough Great British Bake off programmes to know?) but NO! La speranza è l’ultima a morire as we say in Italian (translated: hope is the last thing to die) so in the oven they went and you can see the unhappy result in the photo right at the bottom (mind you: they tasted ok. When my husband and my friends returned from their walk, tired and hungry, they scoffed quite a few of them. Just as they were: unfilled. EH? They must have been hungry then!) My mistake was to put all the beaten eggs in the mixture when you should really add them little by little and check for consistency. What you end up with should be soft but not TOO soft, if you know what I mean. When you put it on the tray it should keep its shape (that of a walnut) and not spread flat. Anyway , as I was determined to make profiteroles for dessert I had another go and, as you can see, the second time it worked.
profiteroles take 2
If you get the mixture right (which incidentally is called choux pastry) they are not difficult to make! For the second batch I didn’t use all my beaten eggs, for example. When the profiteroles had cooled down I filled them with chantilly cream (read: whipped cream with the addition of some icing sugar) and poured hot chocolate sauce (see recipe at the bottom) on top just before serving them. Voilà! So the moral of the tale is: don’t be disheartened if the first time you cook something it’s a disaster. Learn from your mistakes and try again. It’s the only way! And now I would like to publicly invite Candi to share one of her misdemeanours please! 
HOT CHOCOLATE SAUCE
In a pan gently melt 100 gr. good quality dark chocolate, 1 tablespoon golden syrup and 200 ml. double cream. Give a good stir and serve.
the profiteroles misdemeanour
Oh, oh…. Che disastro davvero! Per fortuna il secondo tentativo e’ stato un successo!!
Domani è la mia giornata dei compleanni: come ho raccontato l’anno scorso, 3, marito, sorella e figlio. Ho solennemente promesso di fare la torta per tutti e diversa. E di solito faccio i profiteroles per variare e non fare proprio 3 torte. Uso una vecchia ricetta di un ricettario pubblicità di una marca di lieviti ecc. E funziona… Ma oggi un misdemeanour, un misfatto credo di averlo fatto anch’io oggi.
La mia marmellata di cedri che credevo pronta sembra rimasta troppo liquida… vediamo domani
Voglio un update sulla marmellata di cedri! Era troppo liquida o me ne posso aspettare un barattolo quando ti vengo a trovare???:-)
eh eh, te ne puoi aspettare un barattolo, perché liquida sì ma avendo tante e dolci bucce (la parte più buona del cedro) si può mangiare e non solo bere! 😉 ma non devi venire solo col bagaglio a mano…