I feel SO FULL! We have just finished the home made profiteroles I made this morning. Lovely little sweet choux pastry balls, filled with cream and covered in bitter sweet chocolate sauce.
I had originally decided I would make chocolate eclairs as they are my favourite bakery treat. I researched a few recipes and came across the daring bakers who had completed the beautiful Croquembouche last May. I found many blog entries that amazed me but this one caught my eye from Citrus and Candy.

I followed the recipe for the pastry which worked a treat but didn't fancy the palava of making the creme patissiere as we had a few tubs of cream in the fridge that needed to be used. I whipped up the cream with some sugar and piped that inside them instead.

For my chocolate sauce I used 100g of Green & Blacks 85% cocoa chocolate melted in a bain marie with about 25g of butter and a drop of vanilla extract.
Here are the profiteroles filled but before the sauce...


 I feared I hadn't cooked them long enough as the recipe called for 10 minutes in the oven at 220 degrees and then 20 minutes at a lower temperature of 180... after 15 minutes they looked golden brown and ready to come out. I made myself wait another 5 minutes and took them out after 20 minutes in the oven. They were perfect!






 Here they are all "Dressed"! I sifted some icing sugar over them before drizzling the chocolate sauce over... mmmmmm!
 The boys decided to have their last profiterole "Down In One"!

  

And here is my newest plate! I found it at a car boot sale on the weekend. I love the swallows and thought it would come in handy for Christmas and as a general serving platter, how right I was!