Recipe: Halloween Profiterole Snake

INGREDIENTS

FOR THE PASTRY

120g unsalted butter

½ tsp salt

2 tbsp caster sugar

250 ml water

1 tsp vanilla extract

170g plain flour

5-6 large eggs, lightly beaten

FOR THE RASPBERRY PUREE

200g raspberry

2 tsp icing sugar

FOR THE CREAM

450g double cream

75g icing sugar

FOR THE CARAMEL

200g granulated sugar

50 ml water

Allergens are marked in bold

Preheat the oven to 160 C. Line 2 baking trays with baking parchment. Draw 3-3.3.5cm (1 ½ inch), roughly 50-60 circles, leaving space in between for the profiteroles to expand. Also draw one head for the snake, which is bigger than the size of the profiterole.

Combine the butter, salt, sugar, vanilla and water in a saucepan over a medium heat. Once the butter has melted, bring the liquid to a boil and remove the pan from the heat and add the flour. Put the pan back on a very low heat, stirring vigorously for 1 minute until the mixture comes away from the sides of the pan.

Tip the paste into a large bowl and leave to cool until barely warm. Using an electric whisk, gradually add the beaten eggs to the paste, whisking well after each addition. You might not need all the egg, so towards the end add one tbsp at a time until you have a shiny paste that falls from the spoon when lightly shaken.

Spoon the paste into a piping bag and pipe balls of choux onto the circles drawn on the baking paper. Bake for 30 minutes. Remove the baking sheets from the oven and bake a small hole on the bottom of each profiterole to let out the steam. Return the sheets to the oven and bake for the further 10 minutes or until crispy and golden. Let them cool on a wire rack.

While that is cooling prepare the filling.
Heat the raspberries with the icing sugar in a pan and cook on low heat for 5 minutes until totally soft and mushy. Blitz this with a hand blender for a second and pass this through a sieve to get a smooth brightly coloured raspberry puree. Let it cool completely.

In another bowl whisk the cream with the sugar until you get soft peaks, make sure to not over whisk the cream. To this add 3-4 tbsp of the cooled raspberry puree to the cream and fold it in. Fill this cream in piping bag.

Make a hole in the bottom of each profiterole and fill generously with the raspberry cream. Make a slit on one side of the snake head and fill that with the cream too.

Now make the caramel by heating the sugar and water in a pan until the sugar has turned to caramel and golden.
Place the snake head on the serving plate and dip one profiterole partly in the caramel and stick it to the head. Be very careful of the hot caramel. Carry on with all the profiteroles and shape the snake. You can make the snake as big as you like depending how many profiteroles you decide to use.
Fill a piping bag with the left over raspberry puree and drizzle the red puree on parts of the snake.
Place it on the Halloween party table and enjoy!