The first time I made profiteroles was several years ago for Paul's birthday dinner. I used a David Lebovitz recipe and made cinnamon ice cream, hot fudge sauce, and candied almonds ahead of time. On the day of the party all I had to do was make the puffs (is profiterole the name of the puff or the name of the dessert as a whole?). I must have made them three times before they turned out. The first time I didn't cook enough of the liquid out before adding the eggs. The second time I was impatient and used eggs straight from the refrigerator. I'm reasonably sure I cried. Paul kept trying to console me and telling me he was sure the runny blobs I was trying to spoon on my baking sheet would taste fine, but I knew they were wrong. The third time I waited until the eggs were at room temperature and cooked more of the liquid out before adding them. They still didn't look like much on the baking sheet and I stood anxiously watching them while they baked in the oven, but miraculously they rose into lovely golden puffs. Our friends loved the dessert, which made me particularly happy because I had broken my usual rule and made profiteroles for friends who are actually French.
After my first profiterole experience I had high hopes for this recipe. I love the cinnamon and chocolate combination (if you ever have extra time, money, and calories on your hands go make this) and am a sucker for anything with coffee (unfortunately decaf these days). Unfortunately, these were kind of disappointing. The chocolate sauce and ice cream were okay, but I liked David Lebovitz's recipes better for both of them. The puffs were good, but neither Paul nor I could taste the coffee at all, and I brewed an extremely strong pot of coffee. I'm going to try a plain puff tonight--I think the chocolate sauce might have over-powered the coffee flavor--but I don't think the brewed coffee and beans added much other than a pretty look. Oh well. These weren't bad, but from now on I'm sticking to David's recipe.
I liked these. I thought the coffee flavor did come through. They're not on my "top ten" list, but they're good.
ReplyDeleteYou are brave for making a French dessert for French people. You are mean for linking to the chocolate babka from Smitten KItchen. Now I have another recipe for my "need to make, but it's so fattening" list.
my attempt at the espresso ones failed so I tried the recipe with a plain profiterole instead. I don't think the ground beans added much flavour to it as well...
ReplyDeleteYeah, these worked out for me, but it probably wasn't my favorite attempt either. I loved that you made them for French friends.
ReplyDeleteIt's hard to go past David Lebovitz's recipes sometimes, isn't it? Your profiteroles look great. I ended up trying different flavours as I am trying to not have coffee at the moment.
ReplyDeleteThe coffee dough did not work for me. And they did not have a very strong coffee flavor at all. I ended up making a plain batch that turned out much better and I did make David's cinnamon recipe - love his book.
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