Black and white cream puffs (profiteroles)

Here we go, let’s start. This is the first post ever on this blog and I am quite excited about it. Its topic is an indulgent and voluptuous dessert, yet rather easy to prepare: cream puffs, also known as profiteroles.

Two days ago my friend invited me for dinner and I decided to bring the dessert. I chose to make profiteroles because they are a classic that can please everybody’s taste. 

The history of this dessert dates back to the XVI century, to the court of the French King Henry II and his wife, the Italian noblewoman Catherine de’ Medici, who brought to France her own chefs together with their recipes. Despite the Italian origin, the dessert became famous in France in the XVII with the name “profiterole”, from the French “profit” (profit, gain, benefit). It indicates a choux pastry ball filled with whipped cream, pastry cream or even ice-cream and topped with chocolate sauce, caramel or a dust of icing sugar.

For my dessert I decided to fill the choux pastry balls with sweetened whipped cream and to cover them with two different types of topping: diplomat cream (also known as Italian Chantilly cream) and chocolate pastry cream. This is how I got the lovely two-colored look and of course two different flavors. The secret to this smooth and tasty coating is the pâte à bombe.

Let’s have a look at the ingredients and the recipe.

Ingredients for about 35 medium sized cream puffs

- 35 choux pastry balls

- 500g sweetened whipped cream

- 350g pastry cream

- 350g chocolate pastry cream

- 90g pâte à bombe

Make a hole at the bottom of the choux pastry balls and then fill them with the sweetened whipped cream using a piping bag. For the cream you can either use traditional whipping cream with the addition of a 10% of sugar (which means for example 500ml cream + 50g sugar), or plant-based whipping cream that usually does not require any additional sweetening.

Put the pastry cream in a bowl and add 100g whipped cream and 40g pâte à bombe to it. Mix everything together with a whisk to get a smooth diplomat cream.

In a separate bowl, add 50g pâte à bombe to the chocolate pastry cream, mixing them carefully with a whisk or a maryse spatula.

Usually pâte à bombe is used as a base for desserts, such as a mousse. It gives a dense and airy texture to the dessert. For my recipe, adding a bit of pâte à bombe to the pastry cream lightens its texture creating a kind of loose mousse that covers gently the cream puffs.

To cover the choux pastry balls with the cream, put three of them per time into each bowl and gently fold the cream all over them using a spoon. Tap the spoon on the edge of the bowl to remove the exceeding cream and then put them on a serving plate one on top of another in a mountain-like shape.

Sprinkle some chocolate chips on top of them as decoration.

Enjoy!