General everyday cooking is fine, but baking is where it's at. Cookies, cakes, brownies, bread...I love it all. Mind you, I don't like eating it all, but baking is one of those simple pleasures that brings joy in the process, even if the final product goes to someone else. Example: I hate cake. Baking cakes? Yes please! Eating cake? Pfft. Not unless Mom tricks me into it.
Sidebar: Now that I think about it, I AM a selfish baker. While I may not like cake, I love cake batter. Even if I don't eat the cookies, I still get to sample the cookie dough. So...scratch that part about the 'simple pleasures that bring joy in the process' crap above. I get to eat just as much. And before everyone else. Ha.
BUT TO THE STORY AT HAND...
Yesterday was my friend's birthday. While he isn't particularly fond of birthdays, I figured that I would take the opportunity to flex my culinary muscles and make him something anyway. I'd already made him a carrot cake a while back, thus removing what I knew to be his favorite dessert. Thinking he had simple tastes (and forgetting he's British, aka a Lover of Pastry), I asked what his second favorite dessert was.
Answer: Profiteroles
As he and I are forced to do about a dozen times during any conversation, we asked the powerful Google for assistance as he tried to explain the very British-sounding 'profiteroles' to the Oregon Girl.
Answer: Cream Puffs
[While I try and stand up for America in most cases, England definitely won in the name-game of profiteroles vs. cream puffs. However our name is much more descriptive and probably wouldn't have required a trip to Google.]
Now if you review the list of things I enjoy baking, you will find a significant lack of pastries. Pie isn't even on the list because the crust is a pain in the bum. But I'd already asked. I couldn't just say, "Oh, yeah. Profiteroles. Those sound great...but wouldn't you prefer a nice batch of chocolate chip cookies?" It was too late.
I Google'd 'profiteroles' again when I got home to find a decent recipe. The BBC was happy to provide (of COURSE it would be the BBC. They're British. Literally the only people that call them profiteroles.) And so the recipe was chosen.
It seemed straightforward enough, apart from the fact that everything was measured in grams and ounces (use cups & tablespoons, for heaven's sake!). And I needed double cream (?). And...caster sugar? So, I did what any red-blooded American in England would do...and went back to Google.
After a trip to the store, which required more of Google's assistance (200g of dark chocolate...is that one bar? Three bars? Half a block?!) I was ready and committed to being a pastry chef. Especially committed because the double cream I found was on Special since it expired today.
6 steps & 2 videos are provided to help make the 'choux pastry' required for profiteroles. Apparently it gets all fluffy and open on the inside.
6 steps, 2 videos (each watched 3 times), 2 tries at the first 4 steps, a new recipe for glue made from flour, water & sugar, and another trip to Google (what the heck is a 'soft dropping consistency'?!) left me with...not 'choux pastry'. But it was something.
And the something had to be piped into balls on a pan. Apparently a 'soft dropping consistency' is required to keep the piped pastry dough from becoming a piped pancake. Apparently I didn't have a 'soft dropping consistency'. I made fancy pancakes.
I tried to add more flour. Too pasty.
I tried to add more egg. Back to pancakes.
I was literally up to my elbows into the stickiest, most unforgiving paste ever. But I persevered.
I've decided I prefer the name 'profiterole' to 'cream puff'. Cream puff is more descriptive in that it suggests you've formed a 'puff', of sorts. Profiterole leaves a lot to the imagination. And a good, active imagination is what was needed to accept that what I'd created had come from any sort of recipe.
In the end I decided to take after Mom and...um..."experiment".
Two pancakes, orange zest cream in the middle, dark chocolate spooned over the top...they might not be cream puffs or profiteroles as one would expect to see them, but they aren't too bad!
So, lesson learned: it's good to know your strengths and weaknesses.
My strengths include baking & 'problem solving'.
My weaknesses? Pastries & profiteroles.
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