Christmas Pudding Chocolate Profiteroles

Chocolate profiteroles filled with brandy spiked cream and topped with white chocolate and a holly decoration

Course Dessert

Cuisine French

Keyword Dessert

Prep Time 30

Cook Time 20

Total Time 50

Servings

Calories 104kcal

Author thebakingexplorer

Ingredients

For the choux pastry

85 g Butter
110 ml Water
125 ml Whole milk
100 g Plain flour
15 g Cocoa powder
½ tbsp Caster sugar
A pinch of salt
3 Eggs large

For the filling

300 ml Double cream
1 tbsp Icing sugar
3 tbsp Brandy

For decoration

125 g White chocolate melted
30 Holly decorations shop bought or home made

Metric - US Customary

Instructions

To make the choux pastry, measure the butter, water and milk out into a pan and melt together on a low heat stirring every so often
Meanwhile, sieve the flour and cocoa powder into a bowl and stir in the sugar and salt
Once the butter has melted into the milk and water, bring it to the boil then add the flour mixture and quickly stir it in using a wooden spoon. Beat it together quickly for about 2 minutes, then remove from the heat and leave to cool for at least 10 minutes
While it is cooling, pre-heat your oven to 180C Fan/200C/400F/Gas Mark 6 and line two baking trays (or however many you have) with baking paper, use some butter to help it stick to the baking tray
Put the mixture into a bowl or into the bowl of a stand mixer. Add the eggs one at a time and beat in using an electric hand mixer or a stand mixer until the mixture is smooth
Tip the mixture into a piping bag fitted with a round nozzle
Pipe blobs of the mixture onto the lined baking trays keeping them about 2 cm apart, then dip your finger in water and pat down any peaks that have been created from piping. Put any mixture that is leftover in the fridge if you run out of baking tray or oven space
Bake the profiteroles for 20 minutes, then leave to cool completely
To make the filling whisk together the ingredients until thick, transfer to a piping bag with a thin, sharp nozzle (I used a small leaf nozzle). Use the nozzle to pierce the bottom of the profiterole and pipe the cream inside until full
Melt the white chocolate by microwaving for 30 seconds, stir, then microwave for 10 seconds at a time, stirring each time, until fully melted and mixed together
Dip the top of each cream filled profiterole into the white chocolate, then stick your decoration on top while the chocolate is still wet
Serve immediately and store any leftovers in the fridge in an airtight container and eat within 2 days

Notes

Make sure all your eggs are at room temperature before you start baking. The butter and milk can be cold as you're going to heat them up anyway.
You can use either real butter or a baking spread, but real butter has the best flavour.
I recommend using whole milk for the profiteroles, but semi-skimmed milk will work well too.
If you don't want to use brandy to flavour the cream, Baileys would be a delicious alternative! Or for an alcohol free option, use 1 tsp vanilla extract.
If you can't find any ready made holly decorations, you can make them out of fondant using a leaf cutter on the green fondant, and by rolling red balls from red fondant.
Although I provide cup measurements, I highly recommend weighing your ingredients out using digital kitchen scales*. It is the most accurate way to measure ingredients and will ensure the best results. Digital scales are very low cost and can be purchased for around £12 ($16.50) .
For teaspoon (tsp) and tablespoon (tbsp) measurements, please use measuring spoons* and not the type of spoons you eat with. Again this will ensure accuracy and provide the best results.

Nutrition