pumpkin profiteroles and caramel apple pie

first off...pumpkin profiteroles aka cream puffs...YUM! these are definitely food coma inducing, especially after a huge holiday meal but so worth the distended belly at the end! the recipe comes from epicurious.com... a great source of wonderful recipes. i did not make the original sauce but made a chocolate sauce instead and it was beyond great.

it makes an awful lot of pumpkin custard which is not a bad thing. next time i think i will make double the profiterole recipe since they made roughly 16 large ones but i had enough custard to make 20 more.


enjoy!

pumpkin profiteroles with chocolate sauce
(adapted from an epurious.com recipe)

3 cups heavy whipping cream
2 1/4 cups pure pumpkin puree
3 1/4 tsp pumpkin pie spice
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 cup pure cane sugar
9 large as fresh as you can get egg yolks

profiteroles

1/2 cup water
1/2 cup whole milk
1/2 cup unsalted butter
1 1/2 tsp sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup unbleached all purpose flour
4 large eggs
1 large egg yolk

for pumpkin custard:
preheat oven to 325F.
whisk cream, pumpkin, spices and salt in a dutch oven over med heat. bring to simmer and stir often.
remove from heat.
whisk egg yolks and sugar in a large bowl. mix quickly as egg yolks can "cook" when sugar is added.
start off by whisking a tbl at a time of hot pumpkin/cream mixture into the egg yolk...then gradually and very slowly add more of the hot mixture to the egg yolks in the bowl. the key is slow and steady and constant whisking so your custard is creamy and smooth and does not taste like eggs or end up scrambled.

grab a large baking dish, about 13x9x2 and fill it with hot water about 1/4 of the way up.
pour the pumpkin custard in a 8x8x2 glass baking dish and place it into the hot water bath or bane marie.
bake until custard is set; about an hour. cool.
this can be made a day ahead.

for the profiteroles:
preheat oven to 425F.

line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.

combine water, milk, butter, sugar and salt in a dutch heavy bottomed sauce pan; bring to a boil.
stir in flour and cook over med high heat until dough stops sticking to the sides and starts forming into a ball in the pan..about a minute.

transfer to a mixer and beat for a few minutes until slightly cooled.

add 3 eggs only 1 at a time. beat after each addition until blended. beat in the egg yolk until blended.

drop large tablespoonfuls of batter onto sheet; about an inch and a half-2 apart.
brush tops with remaining beaten egg. bake 15 minutes.

reduce oven to 375 and bake about 20-25 more minutes until puffed and golden brown. cool.

can be made a week ahead and frozen.

when everything is cooled slice the tops of the profiteroles off. add enough pumpkin custard to fill it up. put the lid back on. sprinkle with cinnamon and drizzle with chocolate sauce. and then eat them all!


chocolate sauce
4 oz chocolate (whatever kind you want...i used a mix of bittersweet and milk)
1/4 cup water
1/2 tsp sugar
3 tbl butter
dash of vanilla

melt chocolate and water in a bowl in a microwave for 1 minute. stir to combine.

add sugar and mix.

add butter and stir to melt...add vanilla!

cool and reheat before drizzling over the cream puffs.




caramel apple pie


this recipe is lifted directly off of here

• epicurious
• 
  

i don't deviate from the recipe much at all...the only exception being i substitute cake flour with ap flour.
littlefoodie is being a sweet little pain right now so i'll just leave you with this link and tell you to make this pie...it is rich, the crust is flaky and buttery.

enjoy!