Pink Profiteroles

I'm one of those girls, I love pink. And some glitter sometimes. I won't say no to a rhinestone or two. Tiny things? I get a little enthused. Sprinkles…sign me up. Ruffles, polka dots, ribbons and bows? I swoon.

In honor of that lovey-dovey Hallmark holiday happening later this week that is full of hearts and sparkles, I made something pink and tiny and covered with sprinkles, just for me. Because who needs a Valentine when you’re a baker.

Profiteroles with pink Chantilly cream and dark chocolate ganache. Ooh la la! (Or as one of my chef instructors in culinary school would put it, “Cream puffs with whipped cream and chocolate sauce…four dollars. Profiteroles with pink Chantilly cream and dark chocolate ganache…eight dollars”)

Pâté à Choux is the dough that you use to make such delicacies with fancy names like eclairs, gougeres or croquembouche. Here it is used to make these dainty cream puffs. Pâté à Choux is a different sort of baking recipe, you cook the ingredients on the stove and there is dumping and cooling and lots of stirring and maybe piping, it’s got a lot going on. But don't let that be intimidating; the ingredients are totally everyday, it is pretty simple and quick to put together and the results are impressive and fun.

In culinary school they tried to get us to make a “team name” for our class. No one could agree on one so we never ended up with a name, but my fave suggestion was “choux fetish”. Get it? Ha ha!

I piped the pâté à choux into small mounds, baked them into golden little orbs, split them open and swirled into them pink whipped cream. I made my own natural food coloring because that’s what you do when you're a hippie who’s also into glitter nail polish. How do I make natural food coloring? From beets, that’s how! What?

I took three small beets, removed the greens and scrubbed them thoroughly, diced them into large chunks and covered them with water by about two inches in a small saucepan. I put it on low heat and let the beets cook for a good hour-hour and a half until the beets were very soft and there was just a few tablespoons of very pigmented water at the bottom of the pan. You can eat the boiled beets at this point if you’re down with that (the greens too!) and use the liquid as red food dye. Don't worry about the flavor, I've had it in frostings and whipped creams and I haven't yet been able to detect any beety-ness. The hue is a little on the purple side and it is not as intense as commercial food coloring, but in certain applications where a little extra liquid won’t affect the end result of your recipe, it is a beautiful natural substitute. 

I made the Chantilly cream with some powdered sugar and vanilla. Did you know Chantilly and whipped cream are the same darn thing? Well, there you go! I whipped up a pint of very chilled cream in a cold, clean bowl until it was softly thicker and then added the vanilla and about ½ cup powdered sugar in stages until it was sweet and firm. I then added the coloring a teaspoon at a time until I go the color I wanted, I used about 1 tablespoon beet juice concentrate to color the cream a light pink. 

You could stop there, filling your cream puffs with the Chantilly cream and call it a lovely day, but why would you quit here when chocolate exists? I made a simple ganache of equal parts (8 oz each) dark chocolate chips and scalded heavy cream to drizzle over the puffs. Just warm the cream over medium heat until it is steamy and a few bubbles rise around the edges, pour it over your chopped chocolate or chocolate chips in a heatproof bowl and let it sit for about 5 minutes, then stir. The chocolate should be melted and the mixture will come together into a glossy, dark sauce. That is ganache and it belongs on everything.

I finished the cream puffs with sprinkles, because sprinkles. When my sister and I were kids my dad put those colored sugar crystal sprinkles on our morning yogurt and we would stir them in to tint our yogurt all sorts of unnatural, awesome colors. I love my Dad and I love sprinkles. Happy Valentines Day!

Pâté à Choux

From Smitten Kitchen

Makes about 18 two-inch puffs

            1 cup water

            ½ tsp salt

            1 Tbs sugar

            6 Tbs butter – cut into small chunks

            1 cup all purpose flour

            4 eggs – room temperature

1.     Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Have a cookie sheet ready with parchment paper.

2.     Bring the water, salt, sugar and butter just to a boil in a saucepan. Remove the pot from the heat and dump in all of the flour at once and start stirring with a wooden spoon. I put the pan back on the still warm (but off) burner and stir until the dough comes together in a smooth ball that looks dry on the surface and just starts to leave a thin film on the sides and bottom of the pan as you stir.

3.     Remove the pan from the stove and transfer the dough to a mixing bowl; let the dough cool about 5 minutes. Beat in the eggs, one at time, mixing thoroughly. The dough should be smooth and shiny after you’ve added all the eggs.

4.     Fill a piping bag fitted with a large straight tip or reusable plastic bag with the corner cut off, with the dough. Pipe out small mounds, about 1 ½ to 2 inches, leaving lots of space around them to allow for them to puff up. You can also use two spoons or a cookie scoop to portion the dough. Use a finger dipped in water to smooth out any little tips sticking up.

5.     Bake for about 25-30 minutes until puffy and deep golden brown. They should have puffed up considerably and be light and hollow. I pricked mine as soon as they came out of the oven with the end of a thermometer to allow steam to escape.

6.     Baked cream puffs don’t hold very well, but you can recrip them in the oven if you decide to store them (in an airtight container, before filling them).

7.     To finish these cream puffs, I made the whipped cream and ganache as described above. I filled a pastry bag fitted with a large star tip with the pink whipped cream and after carefully cutting the tops off the cream puffs, I stuffed them with pretty whipped cream and then put the little lids back on top, drizzled each with about a tablespoon of ganache and sprinkled them with those little ball sprinkles that love to scatter all around your kitchen. And then I ate one. Or, all of them. They don’t hold well, so just go for it.