Profiteroles and Cream Puffs

I've wanted to make profiteroles for ages since I've certainly enjoyed my fair share of them at restaurants.  I loved being able to recreate this dessert at home - crisp yet soft pastry wrapped around cold ice cream with plenty of chocolate sauce (preferably warm) drizzled around.  Yum!  So with all my recent ice cream talk, I finally made profiteroles!

I filled mine with some homemade vanilla ice cream.  I took the classic route but there are no rules and any of your favorite ice cream flavor would be great.  Unadorned, they are possibly the coolest little ice cream sandwiches I can think of but I really believe chocolate sauce is a must.  Instead of making my own, I took a shortcut and warmed up some good-quality store-bought mint chocolate sauce that I had tucked away in the fridge to go with it.  It was really good!  My family and I had a good time polishing these off, and I was somewhat surprised to see my little one enjoying it since he usually turns them down at restaurants.  Unlike his mom, he's not big on carbs so the pastry doesn't appeal to him on sight.  But he loves eclairs...go figure!

And can I tell you something?  I had fun making the Pate a Choux dough for these puffs!  I simply stirred the ingredients together in a saucepan over the stove.  After it cools a bit, stir in a couple of eggs vigorously.  It's really that easy.  Then, watching the squat rounds of dough puff up in the oven is like a magic trick!  I must remember that when it comes time for my son to do science projects or enter science fairs, we need to consider doing something on eggs and how they make things magically inflate when heated.

Being that I hate to waste (and it's not always practical to share), I'm happy to report that you can freeze any leftover puffs you don't use.  My batch makes a dozen puffs - a manageable amount but, if necessary, you could freeze extras for another time.  You can actually store baked puffs in an airtight container for a couple of days; refresh them by popping them in the oven for a few minutes and they dry and crisp back up!  For longer storage, you can also either freeze the unbaked piped dough or the baked puffs once cooled.

And as most of you most likely already know, the dough, or Pate a Choux, is the basis for profiteroles that we stuff with ice cream as well as cream puffs, eclairs, and even savory gougeres (cheese puffs), too.  While I was only initially planning to make profiteroles, I decided to go double-duty with my dough and make some cream puffs too!  And, of course, instead of plain whipped cream, I had to make cocoa-whipped cream to go in it.

Don't you love it when you can take one thing and turn it into something else?

The pastry's hallow centers make perfect little wells for the cream in the cream puffs and the ice cream in the profiteroles.  A creamy filling works great with the light shells.  I have to admit that, asked to choose, I prefer something with ice cream rather than without so the four remaining puffs in my freezer are destined to be filled with some and made into profiteroles in the very near future.

I hope I've convinced you to make some profiteroles - they are a great excuse to eat more ice cream!