These are not your French grandmother's profiteroles. A lining of raspberries around the edge seal in the pastry cream and raspberry chantilly, which adds bold raspberry flavor with beautiful presentation. The choux also adds just enough crunch with the craquelin.
Makes 2 dozen large profiteroles.
- Prepare the craquelin
- Prepare the pastry cream
- Prepare the raspberry chantilly
- Bake the choux
- Assemble the profiteroles
Special Equipment
Optional, But Helpful Equipment
Prepare the craquelin
If you have not already, please read how to make craquelin for a more detailed tutorial on how to make this step.
- 100 grams butter at room temperature
- 100 grams white granulated sugar
- 100 grams flour
- red food dye
Cream the butter and sugar together in a stand mixer. Then beat in the flour until it forms crumbles. Add the food dye bit by bit until you reach the color you want. Press the crumbles together until it holds together in a solid ball. Transfer this to a cutting board and knead with your hands until it is smooth.
Using a rolling pin, roll out the craquelin dough between two sheets of parchment paper or silicone mats. Use a round pastry cutter to cut out small discs about the size of your choux when they are piped.
Prepare the pastry cream
If you have not already, please read how to make pastry cream for a more detailed tutorial on how to make this step.
- 4 egg yolks (60 grams)
- 380 grams whole milk (1 3/4 cup)
- 100 grams sugar (1/2 cup granulated)
- 2 tbsp flour
- 2 tbsp corn starch
- ~1 tsp vanilla extract (or 1/2 vanilla bean)
- (optional) 2 tbsp of cognac, rum, or brandy
Cream the egg yolks and sugar together until light and fluffy. Whisk in the flour and corn starch. Heat the milk, vanilla, and rum until just simmering. Pour this into the egg yolks in thirds, whisking each time.
Pour this back into the pot and gently heat over a low heat until it starts to thicken, then take off the heat.
Prepare the rasberries
- 120 raspberries (4 rasbperries/8 halves per profiterole, plus 20 for purée)
- 2 tablespoons sugar
This is a lot of raspberries, so if you have a Costco near you, it might be cost effective to buy in bulk. You can also scale down the recipe or make some choux without raspberries.
You want the raspberries to be consistent when decorating your choux, so it's important that they are about the same size. Select 10 from the left and 10 from the right (the largest and the smallest) to purée. Slice the rest in half to decorate your choux.
Save this purée for the raspberry chantilly.
Prepare the vanilla and raspberry chantilly
If you have not already, please read how to make creme chantilly for a more detailed tutorial on how to make this step.
- 2 cups of heavy whipping cream, as cold as possible
- 4 tbsp sugar
- 2 tsp vanilla or vanilla beans
Using an immersion blender (or a whisk if you do not have an immersion blender), whip up the cream with the sugar and vanilla. Once you've reached stiff peaks, separate the chantilly into 1/4 and 3/4 portions. The 1/4 portion will be used to pipe on top, but the 3/4 portion will be mixed with the raspberry and piped into the choux pastries.
Before folding in the rest of the raspberry, stop and assess the texture. It is more important to get the right texture than incorporating all of the raspberries. And adding too much liquid will liquefy the cream, which makes it impossible to pipe. If your cream can still hold stiff peaks, fold in a bit more. Stop when you start to notice your cream texture going from stiff peaks to soft peaks.
Bake the choux
If you have not already, please read how to make choux pastry for a more detailed tutorial for preparing this step.
- 120 grams whole milk (1/2 cup)
- 120 grams water (1/2 cup)
- 120 grams butter (8.5 tbsp butter)
- 145 grams bread or high-gluten flour (1 cup)
- 6 grams salt (0.2 ounces, 1 level tablespoon kosher salt)
- about 4-6 whole eggs
Heat the milk, water, and butter until just starting to simmer. Add all of the flour and salt at once, stirring to ensure all of the flour and liquid are combined and smooth. Continue heating and stirring the dough over a low heat to drive out moisture, about 45 seconds to 1.5 minutes.
Pour this dough out into a stand mixer and beat on low speed until the dough stops steaming. Beat the egg in one at a time until the dough becomes smooth. To test for the right texture, pull up the spoon. The dough should fall from the spoon under its own weight, leaving a trail.
Place the craquelin over your unbaked choux. Bake these at 360°F for about 40 minutes. The choux should be browned and not pale on the outside and stiff (they should not deflate at all when you take them out of the oven). Leave these to cool.
Assemble the profiteroles
At this point, you should have everything you need to assemble the profiteroles. You can optionally prepare some nappage glaze to brush the raspberries, which will help them to retain moisture and give a gorgeous shine.
Follow these steps to assemble:
- Slice off the tops of the choux
- Spoon in a bit of pastry cream
- Pipe some raspberry chantilly in the center
- Layer the raspberry halves around the edge
- Pipe in the rest of the raspberry cream
- Place the tops back on
- Pipe over some vanilla chantilly
- Finish with a strand of vanilla bean and raspberry half
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