profiteroles + marbled shortbread

marbled shortbread

230g salted butter at room temperature
110g caster sugar
320g plain flour
Natural colourings – eg. beetroot powder, matcha powder, cocoa powder
Flavourings of your choice – eg. vanilla essence, orange/lemon zest/cinnamon

1. Beat the butter until really soft and then beat in sugar until soft and fluffy. I don’t have a mixer so I use a fork for this! Works ok. Add your flavorings in  – I used orange zest and cinnamon for the ones we had at the feast. Add the flour and use your hands to mix and form into a dough – being v careful not to over mix as this will make the biscuits tough. 
2. Now divide the mixture into three.
3. Keep one batch of dough aside – this is your plain dough
4. In one bowl mix one batch of dough with a tsp of colouring – eg.beetroot powder, and knead until the colour is mixed in. Set aside
5. In another bowl do the same with a different colouring – eg. cocoa powder (you may need a few tablespoons to achieve a good colour) 
6. Now to marble. Take each batch of dough and roll into a sausage. 
7. Stack these sausages on top of each other and press together well to form a log of dough.Slice this log in half and then stack the two halves on top of each other. Press together and squish into another log form. You can stop here or repeat the process a few times to get a more complex pattern. 
8. Once happy with your marbled log, wrap in clingfilm and chil for around 20 mins. 
9. Meanwhile preheat oven to 160c
10. Remove dough from fridge and slice into rounds. Place these onto lined baking trays, leaving a good amount of space between biscuits as they may spread. Ideally, chill these again for around 15 mins. Bake for 15-20 mins until just slightly golden around the edges – they will still be soft and fragile but will feel finish to the touch. Allow to cool before eating – they will firm up!

Profiteroles

We had such trouble making these! In the end we found that the key to the choux pastry was that the consistency of the batter needs to be thick/firm enough to form quite sturdy blobs of dough, otherwise your buns will collapse. So whilst the recipe specifies 3 eggs you may not need to use all of them.

200ml water
85g butter
115g plain flour
25g sugar
pinch salt
3 medium free-range eggs

1. Preheat the oven to 190C. Line a baking tray with greaseproof paper.
2. Heat the water and butter in a saucepan until the butter has melted.
3. Beat in the flour, sugar and salt until the mixture is smooth, then continue to cook for 2-3 minutes – you want it to be a bit like a roux when you’re making a white sauce.
4. Take the pan off the heat and beat in the eggs, one at a time, until smooth, glossy and thick . You might not need them all!
5. Set aside to cool, then spoon the dough into a piping bag.
6. Pipe blobs of dough onto a lined baking sheet – they should stand up fairly tall . Bake for 15 minutes until golden and crispy. Pierce the bottom of each bun to let the steam out. Allow to cool.
7. Fill the pastries with whopped cream – we added lemon zest and sugar to our cream. Drizzle with melted chocolate (we used white chocolate)