Week 1: Profiteroles

Hi everyone!

I was rudely faced with a snag in my grand plan last week, when I realised that I had no idea how to train myself up to MasterChef standard.

As a starting point, I dug out my dust-covered Series 2 MasterChef cook book. Flicking through it, I realised that the price of making any of the dishes, even the goddamn pie, would bankrupt me. Since I was armed with a half-empty fruit bowl and a budget, this cookbook evidently wasn't for me. However, I wasn't disheartened! Cranking up my laptop, I googled variations of ‘difficult recipes that chefs should know’. Lo’ and behold, I stumbled upon Gordon Ramsay's profiteroles with hot chocolate sauce. It was challenging and cheap, fitting the bill perfectly. 

Sunday was the day. I mentally prepared myself (i.e. procrastinated by watching Midsomer Murders) for the three element marathon.

Element 1: Choux pastry- I'd never made pastry before. Also, I'd existed for 17 years, thinking that 'choux' was spelt 'shoe'.

Pastry looking like a disaster

It started surprisingly well. Twas smooth sailing, as I melted and mixed stuff together. I was beginning to fear that it was going a bit too well and there’d be nothing fun to write about. Well, I needn't have worried… as I added the flour, my pastry mixture took on the consistency of scrambled powdered-eggs. The type that one only ingests on school camps. ‘Shit’, I thought, ‘my pastry isn’t going to rise.’

When I beat in the eggs, things began to look up. It was still all lumps and bumps, but at least it was pipe-able. With my long suffering piping bag in hand, I transformed my pastry from one big lumpy blob into twenty small blobs. As I guided my little blobs to the oven, I felt like a tearful mother, watching her children leave for their first day of school.

When my darling profiteroles came out of the oven, golden brown and (reasonably) risen, it was the proudest I’d felt in my life.

Element 2: Chantilly cream- First time whipping cream. It should've been easy. It wasn't.

Cream actually being a disaster

Somehow, I overbeat the cream. Like my pastry, it looked like school camp scrambled eggs, but this time the situation didn't improve. As I tried to pipe my cream into a profiterole, it turned into a soggy, watery mess (I almost did too). With sorrow in my voice and anguish in my eyes, I begged my mother to go buy me more cream. She grumpily complied.

I kept a watchful eye on the second batch. Thank god I didn’t cock up again and my profiteroles were soon pumped full of cream.

Element 3: Chocolate sauce

At last, nothing went wrong. It's heavenly. Gordon overestimated and I have a tonne leftover.

My darlings

The profiteroles were bloody delicious, surpassing my wildest hopes and expectations. I'm practically MasterChef worthy already. Just kidding, this took 2 and a half hours, so I'd have served the judges empty, uneven pastry shells.

I need a way of rating my success. I'll come up with some sort of system next time (I'm aiming to post on Sunday).

Cheers,

Rosa