Imagine you’re in a beautiful room, reclining on a plush velvet chaise lounge. There’s a dainty table nearby. On the table is a cake pedestal with a little pyramid of small, perfectly plump, pink pastries. They’re filled with sweet, luscious strawberry cream. And they’re all yours. This Strawberries & Cream Profiteroles recipe can make that dream come true. Maybe not the velvet chaise lounge, but really any comfortable chair will do while you indulge in these delicious little gems. Profiteroles have a way of making you feel regal and majestic. I think princesses and princes snack on them. Most of us don’t have a personal pastry chef or the budget to order from a French bakery every day, but we can certainly follow a recipe and make one of the easiest pastry doughs there is. Choux pastry or pate à choux is used to make profiteroles, cream puffs, eclairs, churros and other pastries. Once you get the hang of it, the possibilities are endless.
This recipe features fresh strawberries, but frozen strawberries will work too. You can also substitute raspberries or peaches. To find the recipe for Peaches & Cream Profiteroles, click here. The strawberry purée can be made a day or two ahead and stored in the refrigerator. To make it easy on myself, I like to make the strawberry purée on day one, the pastry cream on day two, then make the profiteroles and strawberry icing and assemble on day three. It’s also helpful to practice the French culinary style of prep, mise en place, which means to have all of your ingredients and equipment in place before you begin. Everything will go much smoother and prevent you from feeling overwhelmed.
Strawberries & Cream Profiteroles
Ingredients
Strawberry Pureé
- 12 ounces (340g) strawberries, hulled and sliced About 2 1/2 cups after hulling and slicing
- 1 teaspoon lemon juice
- ½ teaspoon strawberry extract
Strawberries and Cream Filling
- 1 cup (237ml) whole milk
- ⅓ cup (66g) sugar
- 2 tablespoons (17g) cornstarch
- ¼ teaspoon fine sea salt
- 1 large egg
- 2 tablespoons (28g) unsalted butter, cubed
- ½ teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- Strawberry puree recipe above
- ⅔ cup (156ml) heavy whipping cream
Profiteroles
- ½ cup (118ml) water
- ¼ cup (57g) unsalted butter, cubed
- ⅛ teaspoon fine sea salt
- ½ cup (64g) all purpose flour
- 2 large eggs room temperature
Strawberry Icing
- ¾ cup (90g) powdered sugar
- 2 tablespoons (30ml) reserved strawberry purée
- 1 tablespoon (15ml) heavy whipping cream
- ¼ teaspoon strawberry extract
Instructions
Strawberry Purée
- Purée the strawberries in a blender or food processor. Strain the puréed strawberries through a sieve into a small saucepan. Stir in the lemon juice.
- Bring to a boil over medium heat. Reduce heat and simmer until the strawberry purée is reduced by half. Remove from heat. Stir in the strawberry extract. Set aside to cool completely
Strawberries and Cream Filling
- Bring the milk to a boil in a small saucepan over medium heat.
- Meanwhile, whisk the sugar, cornstarch and salt together in a medium bowl. Add the egg and whisk until smooth.
- When the 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 back into the remaining hot milk and cook over medium heat, whisking continuously, until the mixture comes to a boil and thickens.
- Remove from heat. Stir in the butter and vanilla extract. Pour the mixture through a sieve placed over a bowl. Cover the surface with plastic wrap and let cool completely.
- Set aside 2 tablespoons (30ml) of strawberry purée. Add the remaining strawberry purée to the cooled pastry cream and stir until well combined. Cover strawberry pastry cream and chill in refrigerator.
- In a medium-sized bowl, whip the heavy cream, with an electric mixer at high speed, until stiff peaks begin to form. Fold the whipped cream into cooled strawberry pastry cream. Set aside in the refrigerator.
Profiteroles
- Preheat oven to 400ºF (205ºC). Line 2 large baking sheets with parchment paper.
- Combine the water, butter and salt in a medium-sized saucepan. Bring to a boil over medium heat. Reduce the heat. Add the flour and stir vigorously with a wooden spoon until the mixture pulls away from sides of pan and forms a ball.
- Transfer the mixture to the bowl of a stand mixer. Mix on low speed until steam dissipates and mixture cools to lukewarm. Add the eggs one at a time and beat on medium speed until smooth, stopping to scrape down the bowl.
- Transfer the 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 the prepared baking sheets. Smooth the tops lightly with a wet finger.
- Bake for 15 minutes, then turn down the oven heat to 350ºF (180ºC) and continue baking until golden brown, about 8-10 more minutes. Using a toothpick or skewer, prick a small hole in each profiterole to allow steam to escape. Place on a wire rack to cool completely.
- Use the tip of a paring knife to make a pilot hole in the bottom of each profiterole.
- Place strawberries and cream filling into a piping bag fitted with a medium round piping tip. (I used Wilton tip 12**) Place the tip into the pilot holes and fill each profiterole with filling.
Strawberry Icing
- In a medium -sized bowl, whisk all of the icing ingredients together until smooth. Spoon over the filled profiteroles. Refrigerate profiteroles until ready to serve.
