The profiteroles is a dessert made of beignets stuffed with cream or custard and then ganished with chocolate. It must be kept in the refrigerator, and then served either sliced or distributing the various whole profiteroles to the guests.

Instructions

To prepare the profiteroles you must first of all prepare the custard that will be the filling of the beignets. In a small saucepan heat up the milk (I always use soy milk or rice milk, but nothing prevents you from using cow's milk to get a more tasty cream). When it will be warmed, add the sugar and blend to melt it.

At this point, add the egg yolks and blend again with a kitchen whisk.

Then, add the tablespoon of flour and let it amalgamate well to the rest without creating lumps that would ruin the custard. The shot glass of limoncello will give the final touch to it, and it will perfume very much your custard. When the cream has thickened, turn off the heat and let it cool.

Separately, prepare the beignets by melting the butter and blending on the stove all the ingredients except the egg that afterwards you will add cold.

Take this mixture, put it in a pastry syringe and create some beignets on a baking tray covered with greaseproof paper. Bake them for 20/25 minutes at 200° C, then take them out and let them cool. Your beignets are ready to be stuffed.

Take a round serving dish, fill a pastry syringe with cream and start to pierce your beignets one by one, filling them with custard. Place them side by side, until they create a nice mound of beignets.

At this point, you only have to prepare the frosting for the profiteroles: heat the milk and, in the meanwhile, in another pot blend continuously cocoa, sugar and flour, just to remove the lumps. Then put it on the fire, continuing to blend until boiling. From this moment on, let the frosting thicken for other three minutes. Remove the small saucepan from the stove, and add pieces of chocolate until they melt. Pour the mixture into a bowl, blending it constantly to prevent the patina formation on the surface.

When the frosting is ready, let it gently drip onto the profiteroles until they are almost completely covered.

To make the chocolate thicken, put the profiteroles in the refrigerator. Serve after a few hours, so that all the flavors are well mixed together, and after keeping them out of the refrigerator for about twenty minutes. The profiteroles can be stored for up to two days in the refrigerator.

Tips and Ideas

A fanciful idea is to create single portions (usually the perfect number of profitelores is three), and decorate them with tufts of whipped cream if you wish. The beignets can be bought ready or made easily by yourselves, in this case we are speaking of choux pastry, which is not difficult to make and it is useful for both sweet and savory preparations.

Origin

The profiteroles are not a French dessert, in fact they were born in Tuscany during the Renaissance period. After having married Henry II of France, Caterina De Medici wanted her chef Popelini to preserve the recipes of Tuscany, the land where she was born. And in 1540 it was he who invented the choux, that is the pastry for the beignets, creating the first profiterole which, however, began to become famous only in the Seventeenth century.

However he word profiterole exists since the Sixteenth century and, initially, it did not have a precise meaning, that was then established only later, in the Nineteenth century.