Summer is nearly over, and after the recent heatwave here in Southern California, I’m more than ready to welcome fall weather. But before I put on my fluffy sweater and dive into pumpkin spice everything, I want to enjoy the tail end of peach season, don’t you? Farmer’s markets and stores near my home are still brimming over with fresh peaches, so I picked up some peaches and decided to give them a proper goodbye and send them off in style.
I created some luscious peaches and cream filled, bite-size puffs of choux pastry, called profiteroles. They’re like cream puffs, only smaller. The filling is creamy, but so light and airy that I’m convinced that these profiteroles have no calories! The recipe I’m sharing with you uses fresh peaches, but feel free to substitute frozen peaches if fresh peaches aren’t available. There are a lot of steps to this recipe, but the steps are done in stages and are very easy to do.
I decorated my profiteroles with fresh, pesticide-free miniature rosebuds, also known as spray roses. If you can’t find miniature rosebuds, pesticide-free rose petals would be a good substitute. You may not get a chance to embellish these little beauties. They have a way of popping into people’s mouths even before you can decorate them!
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- 2 large fresh peaches, peeled, pitted and sliced *see note below
- 1/2 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
- 1/2 teaspoon natural peach flavoring
- 1 cup whole milk
- 1/3 cup (2 ounces) granulated sugar
- 2 tablespoons (1/2 ounce) cornstarch
- 1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
- 1 egg
- 2 tablespoon (1 ounce) unsalted butter
- 1/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 1/8 teaspoon pure almond extract
- peach purée recipe above
- 2/3 cup heavy whipping cream
- 1/2 cup water
- 4 tablespoons (2 ounces) unsalted butter, cubed
- 1/8 teaspoon fine sea salt
- 1/2 cup (2 1/4 ounces) all purpose flour
- 2 eggs room temperature
- 3/4 cup (3 ounces) powdered sugar, sifted
- 2 tablespoons reserved peach puree
- 1 tablespoon heavy whipping cream
- 1/4 teaspoon natural peach flavoring
Ingredients
Peach Purée
Peaches & Cream Filling
Profiteroles
Peach Icing
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- Purée peaches in a blender or food processor. Strain puréed peaches through a sieve. Stir in lemon juice.
- Place puréed peaches in a small saucepan. Bring to a boil over medium heat.
- Reduce heat and simmer until peach purée is reduced by half.
- Remove from heat. Stir in peach flavoring and set aside to cool completely.
- Bring milk to a boil in a small saucepan over medium heat.
- Meanwhile, whisk sugar, cornstarch and salt together in a medium bowl. Add the egg and whisk until smooth.
- When milk starts to boil, remove from heat and pour 1/3 of the hot milk into the egg mixture and whisk to combine.
- Pour the egg mixture into the remaining hot milk and cook over medium heat, stirring continuously, until the mixture comes to a boil and thickens.
- Remove from heat. Stir in butter and extracts.
- Pour mixture through a sieve placed over a bowl. Cover the surface of pastry cream with plastic wrap. Let cool.
- Set aside 2 tablespoons of cooled peach purée. Add remaining peach purée to cooled pastry cream and stir to combine. Chill in refrigerator.
- In a medium bowl, whip heavy cream to stiff peaks with an electric mixer at high speed. Fold whipped cream into peach pastry cream mixture. Set aside in refrigerator.
- Preheat oven to 400ºF. Line two large baking sheets with parchment paper.
- Combine water, butter and salt in a medium saucepan and bring to a boil over medium heat.
- Reduce heat. Add flour and stir vigorously with a wooden spoon until mixture pulls away from sides of the pan and forms a ball.
- Transfer mixture to the bowl of a stand mixer. Mix on low speed until steam dissipates and mixture cools to lukewarm.
- Add eggs one at a time and beat with an electric mixer at medium speed, until smooth, stopping to scrape down bowl.
- Transfer mixture to a piping bag, fitted with a large round tip. (**I used Ateco tip 808.)
- Pipe 1 1/4 inch mounds, about 2 inches apart onto prepared baking sheets. Smooth tops with a wet finger.
- Bake for 15 minutes, then turn oven temperature down to 350ºF and continue baking until golden brown, about 8-10 more minutes. Using a toothpick or skewer poke a small hole in each profiterole to let steam escape. Place on a wire rack to cool completely.
- Using the tip of a paring knife, poke a pilot hole in the bottom of each profiterole.
- Place peaches and cream filling into a piping bag fitted with a medium round piping tip. (***I used Wilton tip 12.)
- Place piping tip into the pilot holes and fill each profiterole with filling.
- In a small bowl, whisk all icing ingredients together and spoon over filled profiteroles. Refrigerate until ready to serve.
*To make peaches easy to peel, blanch them  in boiling water for about 30 seconds, then dunk  in ice water.
**To find Ateco tip 808, click here. ***To find Wilton tip 12, click here.
