Profiteroles - The test run

Long time no see and happy Ramadhan (Selamat berpuasa, if you're Malaysian)! Apologies for the lack of activity - I have been quite busy with a temporary job and recently started an internship, but today I had a buzz of content ideas in the car (more on that at the end of the post), and thought I'll finally get round to writing the profiterole test run, which I've been meaning to do for yonks!

A few weeks ago, on the Labour Day public holiday (that's the May Bank holiday for you UK folks), my mum's friend organised a lunch for her group of friends and their families which I grew up with. I was tasked with dessert and was feeling very ambitious.

By ambitious, I mean DURIAN PUFFS ambitious.

Durian puffs, for the uninitiated, are essentially profiteroles (or cream puffs, if you're in America), but they are filled with a durian cream instead of normal custard/whipped cream. Now, I say ambitious because, I've never, in my baking life, made choux pastry.

Nor have I made durian cream/custard, but that was way less daunting than the choux pastry, which seems something you can very easily fail.

But what is life without dreaming big hey??? So off to Google for choux pastry tips it was and I thought alright, I'm pretty set, let's do this.

But kids, remember that you can dream big, but sometimes life has its setbacks. Like durians not being in season at the time you want it to.

The ones that are around are not only lower in quality (my tastebuds have been spoiled by the likes of Musang King/猫山王, which is creamy and sweet and IS HEAVEN), but also expensive. I guess durian in general is expensive but hey if you're gonna pay money for it, you might as well get the good ones.

To be fair, I wasn't really planning on using Musang King because I was going to blend it up and use it in a custard/whip it in a cream (I hadn't really decided if I wanted to do a durian cream or custard) anyway, so anything that was a durian fruit would have worked fine. But even then, durian was pretty hard to find because they won't be in season for another couple of months, and as I said earlier, they were pretty expensive.

So mama told me to do a test run first. If the normal ones turn out well, then I can upgrade to durian puffs.

I went ahead with a profiterole test run and brought the finished product to the lunch on top of my main dessert, a no-bake Nutella cheesecake, just so I could see what the aunties and uncles think, before I make my big break in durian puffs.

I made a vanilla custard the night before, as with my usual habit of baking at night, but made the pastries itself in the morning just cos it'd be much fresher at lunch.

Custard in the making!

Final product to be put in the fridge to be used the next day!

Now I have to say, I was disappointed in the custard itself, not because of how it turned out, I think it turned out pretty well for a first attempt, but the taste was really underwhelming. I only have vanilla flavouring at home which normally works fine as a substitute for vanilla essence (that stuff is expensive this side of the world), but not this time. There's a reason why people use vanilla bean paste or pods to make a really good custard. I never bought vanilla bean paste even when I was in the UK because they easily cost like 10 quid a bottle, but I guess that's still cheaper than what I can find here. Might get sis to bring a bottle back for me. If she's feeling kind enough to spare me some luggage allowance. And 10 quid.

Choux pastry turned out pretty well the next day as well, in fact. I was really really careful to not scramble the eggs when I mixed them into the butter+water+flour mixture, and made sure that the dough left the sides of the pan easily before I added the eggs. One blog said that with 3 eggs the dough has not got enough sheen, with 4 too runny, so they suggested beating the eggs so you have more control on when to stop pouring the eggs.

Now, because the custard only needed yolks, I had some egg whites from the night before and thought that if I add maybe one egg, I'd be good to go (there were egg whites from 3 eggs). But after adding that one egg and the egg whites, the dough not only didn't seem to have a sheen, it was a little bit stiffer than I had liked it to be. So I took the risk and added one more, after beating it as the blog suggested. Was pipeable, but didn't quite have the sheen that I read that it should have. I guess that's largely to do with the egg sizes. Adding one more would have been wayyyyy too risky and I decided to just go ahead with baking it. The egg issue didn't seem to pose much of a problem in the final product.

The puffs itself didn't rise as much as I had expected it to be (I legit thought they'd go crazy huge), and as a result, I had several very small puffs (which mum was very amused by), but most of them were good profiterole sized! I didn't have a piping bag and nozzle so I put about a heaped teaspoon on to the baking tray. And as I had read, I flattened any apexes so that they didn't burn in the oven.

The puffs were baked through when I took them out, but they're not as golden brown as I wanted them to be. Will leave them in the oven a little bit longer next time. I took them out a bit early this time round because I was in a rush. Thank goodness it wasn't undercooked!

Buuuuttttt the important thing is, they didn't sink! They remained puffy and airy and I rejoiced!

This is the only proper picture I have of the profiteroles. Presentation could do with some work for next time.

Verdict: Mama said I was good to go for the durian puffs, and everyone else seemed pretty impressed. No one died or threw up violently so I guess I did something right.

Bonus pic of me filling up the profiteroles (because typical last minute me didn't have time to fill them up at home) and my parents and uncles and aunties just... photobombing. Or maybe I am photobombing them. Who is photobombing who? What are we doing here? Are we even really here? What is our purpose in this universe?

If you look closely you can see a bar of chocolate on the table on top of the blue tupperware cover, which I was going to melt and pour over the profiteroles (like you know, a normal profiterole), but people seemed quite happy with just the cream filling.

Bonus bonus pic of me cutting up and serving the Nutella cheesecake - which turned out fine, but the crust was extremely crumbly! Should definitely have added more butter! Maybe next time that happens I'll just tell everyone it's a deconstructed cheesecake. "It's art!"

Stay tuned for the durian puff post - when they are finally in season!

Also, I have been thinking about posting once a week every week (either Saturdays or Sundays), and I have some good stuff put up so do look out for that! I think by fixing a set day to post up stuff I'd be better at actually keeping this blog alive, even though it is just as a hobby, I definitely should be more diligent with it! And since it is the start of Ramadhan today, it means that there will be Ramadhan bazaars this side of the world, which I might also do a cheeky vlog on.

Until then, take care and eat lots of cake!

Melissa x