Olivier Poels 5:40 p.m., February 17, 2022
Small puffs filled with vanilla ice cream, whipped cream or pastry cream and covered with chocolate icing, profiteroles are an absolutely delicious and regressive dessert.
The word "profiterole" appears in the French language in the 16th century and designates small balls of dough cooked under the ashes, then soaked in a broth and offered to servants.
In 1759, under the name of "profiterole", we mention rolls stripped of their crumb, dried and stuffed with beatillas (small stew of offal and giblets, such as sweetbreads, rooster's combs, heart...).
All this has nothing to do with the dessert we know today, linked to the arrival of choux pastry.
Popelini, Catherine de Medici's cook invented a first version, garnished with jam or fruit jelly.
These are the pups.
We had to wait until the 19th century to eat profiteroles as we know them today, with the contemporary version of choux pastry.
They are topped with whipped cream or pastry cream.
Antonin Carême (him again!) prepares them like this.
Jules Gouffé mentions them in 1873 in his "Pastry Book".
The version with ice cream and chocolate sauce dates back to 1875. The whole point of the desert lies in the temperature contrast between cold ice cream and hot chocolate.
Profiteroles recipe
Ingredients :
50 g of butter
15 cl of water
2 eggs
65 g of flour
1 pinch of salt
1 C.
at s.
sugar
Filling (vanilla ice cream, whipped cream or pastry cream)
50 g of chocolate
1 knob of butter
Mix water, sugar and butter over the heat
Add flour
Remove from the heat, add the two eggs and stir vigorously.
Put the dough back on the heat and dry it well.
Form small balls and bake them in the oven at 180°C for 25 minutes.
Once cooled, stuff them (by opening them from below)
Melt the chocolate with the butter and pour this sauce over the profiteroles