Choux Pastry Raspberry Profiteroles for GBBO Week 8

This week's bakes were tricky weren't they? I couldn't see myself having anything other than a baking disaster with either puff or rough puff pastry for creme horns. The flavours in the Mokatines didn't appeal to me and I didn't fancy my chances of getting a religieuse a l'ancienne made of choux pastry eclairs to stand upright.

But I don't want to quit baking along with bake off. So I'm going to stick with another, much simpler, creation made of choux pastry - profiteroles.

I made these Raspberry Cream Profiteroles when raspberry season was in full swing and I had an abundance of mint growing in the garden. As is usual with my cooking decisions, I decided to make these to avoid ingredients going to waste; I had some cream to use up and whenever I have lots of eggs to use, profiteroles come to mind.

Bearing in mind that I have regular baking disasters, you'll be surprised to hear that profiteroles are one thing that seem to be fool proof for me. So far they have turned out OK every time I've made them.

I remember making them in the days before I owned any kind of icing bag and just spooning teaspoons of the mixture onto a baking tray seemed to work fine too. I doubt they were very neat but they still tasted ok.

So these profiteroles follow a fairly standard profiterole recipe and are then filled with raspberry cream, drizzled with chocolate ganache and garnished with fresh mint leaves.

I know we are now well and truly in autumn, but during the summer months these taste fresh and seasonal.

Raspberry Cream Profiteroles
For the Choux pastry profiteroles:
75g unsalted butter
175ml water
half a tsp salt
100g plain flour
4 eggs

1. Preheat oven to 200C and grease baking trays a little butter.
2. Melt the butter in a pan on the hob with 175ml water and the salt.
3. Add the flour, remove from heat and beat well - The dough should look smooth.
4. Return to the heat for a short while.
5. Add the eggs one at a time - beat in well after each egg is added.
6. Pipe the dough onto the baking tray. Bake for 25-30 minutes.
7. Cool on a rack slitting each underneath with a sharp knife to let out steam (prevent it going soggy)
You can glaze the profiteroles with more egg mixed with a little salt brushed on before cooking if you wish but I didn't.

Chocolate ganache
Stir 150ml double cream into 100g of melted dark chocolate.

Raspberry cream
Whip 300ml of double cream using a mixer (I used the whisk attachment on my Kenwood food processor). Then add in fresh raspberries and mix on a slow setting until the raspberries are gently crushed and mixed into the cream.



To serve cut open the profiteroles and fill with raspberry cream. Drizzle with the ganache and serve with fresh mint leaves.

One of my biggest weaknesses is a huge lack of confidence in myself (and especially my baking and cooking) so it was an amazing surprise to win last week's Bake With Bake Off challenge with Silver Mushroom with my Fesen-joon inspired pie and be featured on their blog and to get a Star Baker mention a few weeks ago at Mummy Mishaps with my Orange and Maple Polenta Cake. So perhaps I do need to have a little more confidence in myself.