Gordon Ramsay’s profiteroles are light choux pastry buns filled with vanilla chantilly cream and drowned in a warm dark chocolate sauce, ready in about an hour. The choux uses milk, water, butter, flour and eggs, nothing more. Get the pastry right and the rest is just piping and pouring.
Gordon makes these on The F Word, and in his F Word Cookbook he promises choux is “deceptively easy, provided you can weigh, beat and pipe.” His chocolate sauce is built from good dark chocolate, butter, honey and milk, not cream, which keeps it glossy and pourable rather than thick.
The one thing that makes or breaks them is the eggs. You beat them in one at a time until the paste is smooth and just falls off the spoon, because too much egg and they spread, too little and they won’t puff. That dropping consistency is the whole game.
Gordon Ramsay Profiteroles
Course: DessertCuisine: French, BritishDifficulty: Medium6
servings30
minutes20
minutes320
kcal50
minutesLight choux buns filled with vanilla chantilly and poured with a warm dark chocolate sauce of chocolate, butter, honey and milk. From Gordon’s F Word Cookbook, makes about 20, ready in an hour.
Ingredients
- For the choux pastry:
125ml (4 fl oz) milk
200ml (7 fl oz) water
100g (3½ oz) unsalted butter
1 tsp golden caster sugar
1 tsp salt
150g (5 oz) plain flour, sifted
4 medium eggs, beaten
- For the chantilly cream:
300ml (10 fl oz) double cream
1 tbsp icing sugar, plus extra to finish
1 tsp vanilla bean paste (or seeds of 1 pod)
- For the chocolate sauce:
150g (5 oz) dark chocolate (60-70%), chopped
50g (1¾ oz) butter
1 tbsp honey
100ml (3½ fl oz) milk
Directions
- Start the choux: Preheat the oven to 200C (400F/Gas 6). Put the milk and water in a pan and bring slowly towards the boil, then add the butter, sugar and salt and let the butter melt.
- Add the flour: Bring to a rolling boil, take off the heat, then tip in all the flour at once and beat hard with a wooden spoon. Return to the heat and stir until it forms a smooth ball that leaves the pan.
- Beat in the eggs: Cool for a few minutes, then beat in the eggs a little at a time until the paste is glossy and just falls off the spoon. Stop if it reaches that point before all the egg is in.
- Pipe and bake: Pipe walnut-sized mounds onto a lined tray, spaced apart. Dip a finger in water and press down each peak so it doesn’t burn. Bake for 18 to 20 minutes until risen and deep golden, then cool on a rack.
- Make the sauce: Melt the chocolate in a bowl over simmering water, stir in the butter and honey until glossy, then take off the heat and whisk in the milk.
- Fill and serve: Whip the cream with icing sugar and vanilla to soft peaks. Pipe generously into each bun through a hole in the base, stack on a plate, dust with icing sugar and pour the warm sauce over.
FAQs
Why do my profiteroles collapse or stay soggy inside?
Two things cause it, and both are fixable. Underbaking is the main one, so leave them the full 18 to 20 minutes until deep golden and firm, not pale, because a pale bun has a wet middle that sinks as it cools. The structure only sets late in the bake.
Don’t open the oven door early either, since the rush of cool air drops the temperature and deflates them mid-rise. If you want them extra dry inside, turn the oven off and leave them in with the door ajar for a few minutes to steam out.
How do you know when the choux has enough egg?
This is the step Gordon flags hardest, because the egg controls everything. You beat it in gradually until the paste is smooth, glossy and drops reluctantly off the spoon in a thick V. The moment it reaches that dropping consistency, stop, even if you have egg left over.
Too much egg and the paste is loose, so the buns spread flat and won’t hold air. Too little and they stay stiff and bake into dense little rocks. Different eggs vary in size, which is exactly why you add them bit by bit rather than all at once.
Why dip your finger in water before baking?
When you pipe choux, each mound leaves a little peak on top, and Gordon dabs those down with a wet finger. He does it because, in his words, those points are what burn first, catching dark before the rest of the bun is even done.
The wet finger also smooths the surface so they rise into neat, even rounds rather than craggy ones. It takes ten seconds across the whole tray, and it’s the difference between tidy profiteroles and scorched tips.
What chocolate makes the best sauce?
Gordon is blunt about this: the better the chocolate, the better the sauce. He uses dark chocolate around 60 to 70 percent, because that bitterness balances the sweet cream inside and stops the dessert turning sickly, the same dark chocolate he leans on for his chocolate fondant.
His sauce skips cream, which surprises people. Instead it’s chocolate melted with butter and honey for gloss, loosened with milk off the heat, so it pours warm and thin over the buns rather than setting into a thick ganache.
Can you make profiteroles ahead?
Yes, and Gordon bakes the buns well in advance, since unfilled choux keeps in an airtight tin for a day or freezes for weeks. If they soften, a few minutes back in a hot oven re-crisps them. That makes this a good dinner party dessert.
What you can’t do is fill them early. The chantilly is the same softly whipped cream he uses in his Eton mess, and like there it goes soft fast, so pipe it and pour the sauce only when you’re about to serve.
What else can you fill them with?
Chantilly is the classic, but in his F Word Cookbook Gordon also makes a coffee version, filling the buns with crème pâtissière loosened with cream and coffee essence, then dipping the tops in chocolate. So the same buns flex from simple to grown-up.
You can borrow other fillings too. The chocolate ganache from his doughnuts pipes beautifully into a profiterole, and ice cream works for a quick sundae, with the warm sauce poured over so it just begins to melt.
