Verity Walcott: Raspberry White Chocolate Profiteroles

by Verity Walcott

A few years ago, my Sicilian husband and I left the chaos of London and moved to the picturesque city of Bath. The slowdown in pace brought me back to fumbling around in the kitchen, determined to make use of all the forgotten kitchen equipment I had accumulated over the years. I started playing with flavours, developing recipes, and documenting the successes and failures of making food. This has led me to train in a cooking school and fulfil a full-time career in recipe development, and food styling. 

My cooking is inspired and I’m influenced by what was on my childhood family table. We were a Caribbean family growing up in the southwest of England, I have fond memories of enjoying a hot Caribbean stew followed by a very British dessert like Jam to Polly. My memories of childhood food are built around the merging of cultures & and now extend to my world travels in Africa, Italy, Brazil and Southeast Asia. I am passionate about sweet things with clotted cream, and lemons, old-school British desserts, cheeseboards and pasta with a glass of wine.

Ingredients (makes 18)

For the choux:

• 115g unsalted butter
• 240ml water
• 120g plain flour
• 1 tsp salt
• 3 eggs

For the Filling and Topping:

• 120ml double cream
• 25g icing sugar
• 200g white chocolate
• 50g freeze-dried raspberries

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 246°C/425°F/Gas 7.
2. Line two large sheet pans with parchment paper.
3. In a large saucepan, bring water, butter, and salt to a boil over medium-high heat. Once it boils and the butter completely melts, immediately remove the pan from the heat.
4. Add all the flour at once and stir vigorously with a wooden spoon or silicone spatula until fully incorporated. Return the pan to medium heat and cook, stirring constantly, for approximately 1 minute.
5. Pour the mixture onto a clean flat sheet pan, spreading it to cool. Once cooled (approx. 10 minutes), transfer it to a mixer bowl fitted with a paddle attachment (or use a hand mixer). Beat at medium speed for about 2 minutes.
6. With the mixer running, add three eggs, one at a time, stopping to scrape down the sides of the bowl after each addition. Continue mixing until the dough is smooth, and glossy, and the eggs are fully incorporated. The dough should be thick and fall slowly from the beater when lifted out of the bowl.
7. Transfer the dough to a pastry bag fitted with a large round tip and pipe dots (about 1 1/2 inches wide by 1 inch tall) spaced about 2 inches apart onto the lined baking sheets.
8. Wet a finger with water and press the tops of each dough mound to smooth out any points of dough that remain on the surface. This will ensure they don’t burn in the oven.
9. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until puffed up and light golden brown. Do not open the oven door during baking. Let the profiteroles cool completely on the baking sheet before decorating.
10. Sieve the icing sugar into a large bowl, add the cream, and beat until it forms ribbons on the whisk.
11. Heat a pan of water, add a heat-proof bowl, and melt the white chocolate in the bowl.
12. Pipe cream into each profiterole, then dip the top of each into the melted white chocolate. Sprinkle with freeze-dried raspberries.
13. Create your profiterole tower by stacking them layer by layer, using melted chocolate between each layer to hold them in place.

Pair with our Mirabeau Sparkling La Folie Rosé and enjoy!