Easy-Peasy dessert - Profiteroles

So, I had a big lunch party the next day and suddenly felt the lack of dessert in the menu at 11pm. I was looking for something easy and impressive, and believe you me, profiteroles fit that bill. The recipe is from the Gourmet cookbook.

Profiteroles are a traditional french dessert. Add some cheese to the mix and you have gougeres or cheese puffs. I had them for the very first time at the impressionable age of 17 in a hip restaurant in Bangalore, while lunching with my very hip aunt. Oh the hip-ness of the whole thing! Hyderabad, my hometown, felt like the boondocks in 1996 and though I was in my Weekender best, I felt decidedly like a country-mouse.

(disclaimer : this picture is not mine, but do believe me when I say that mine looked similar:-))

Ingredients

3/4 stick or 6 tablespoons butter

3/4cup water

1/4 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup flour

2 whole eggs and 1 yolk

Method

Preheat oven to 425F.

Bring the water, salt and butter to a boil, stirring till the butter is melted. On medium heat, add the flour all at once and stir constantly till the dough forms a ball and pulls away from the sides of the pan. Remove from the heat and let cool for about 5 minutes. Beat the eggs into the dough ,one at a time, till well combined.

Line a baking sheet with foil and butter the foil generously. The profiteroles have a tendency to stick.

If you are the type that has pastry bags lying around, good for you, otherwise use a Ziploc bag with a corner snipped off for the next step. Spoon some of the dough into the bag and pipe about 1.5 inch swirls/circles at 2 inch distance from each other onto the baking sheet. You want to achieve some height so pipe one big circle and a small circle on top of it.

Put the profiteroles in the oven and bake for 20-25 minutes, till puffed and golden and you cant believe something so simple can come out so gorgeous.

The fabulous thing is that they can be made at this stage the previous night, stored in an airtight container and refreshed the next day with a few minutes in a hot oven.

Serving options basically involve some kind of ice cream and complimentary sauce.

I served them with vanilla ice cream and chocolate sauce. For the chocolate sauce, I melted some dark chocolate with cream and grand marnier in the microwave. Cut each profiterole in two, not going all the way, and put a scoop of ice cream in between. Serve drizzled with warm chocolate sauce.