Bossche Bollen - Dutch Chocolate Profiteroles

Profiteroles on wood background

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Prep: 90 mins
Cook: 50 mins
Total: 2 hrs 20 mins
Servings: 6 servings

Imagine a supersized profiterole, dunked in glossy dark chocolate and served up for your sticky-fingered enjoyment. We're describing a decadent Dutch treat known as Bossche bollen (loosely translated as ''balls from Den Bosch," a city in the south of the Netherlands). These traditional tennis ball-sized cream-filled pastries have been made in Den Bosch, where they're known as sjekladebollen ("chocolate balls") for at least a century. Notoriously tricky to eat, locals tend to turn the pastry upside down so that the hard chocolate layer on top serves as a shell for the wayward whipped cream inside.

The following recipe originally appeared in The Dutch Kitchen cookbook. We've adapted it to include US measurements and published it on this site with the kind permission of the publisher.

Serve Bossche bollen as an accompaniment to coffee, as the Dutch do, or fly in the face of tradition and have it for dessert with tart summer fruits, such as raspberries, strawberries or red currants, which will help cut through all that richness.

Ingredients

  • 6 1/2 tablespoons (100 milliliters) water

  • 3 scant tablespoons (40 grams) unsalted butter

  • 1/2 teaspoon salt

  • 6 1/2 tablespoons (50 grams) all-purpose flour

  • 2 large eggs

  • 2 tablespoons confectioners' sugar

  • 2 large egg whites

  • 1 vanilla bean

  • 1 cup (250 milliliters) whipping cream

  • 14 ounces (100 grams) confectioners' sugar

  • 2 tablespoons cocoa powder

Steps to Make It

  1. Put the water, butter, and salt in a heavy-bottomed saucepan and bring to the boil.

  2. Sift the flour over a bowl and add to the boiling water while continuously stirring.

  3. Keep stirring until a dough ball forms in the saucepan.

  4. Take the pan off the heat and two of the eggs, one by one, taking care to add the second egg only once the first egg has been incorporated into the dough. Keep stirring until you have a nice, glossy dough.

  5. Divide the dough into 6 balls and lay these on a buttered baking sheet. Place the profiteroles in a preheated oven (437 F/225 C) for 20 minutes until they have turned golden brown and are cooked through.

  6. Turn the oven off, leaving the oven door slightly open. Allow the profiteroles to cool inside the oven for 10 minutes.

  7. In the meantime, add 2 tablespoons confectioners' sugar, 1 egg white and half of the seeds from the vanilla pod to the cream and whip until stiff peaks form.

  8. Sift the 14 ounces confectioners' sugar and cocoa powder over a bowl. Add the other egg white, drop by drop, stirring until the mixture turns thick and shiny.

  9. Fill a piping bag with the whipped cream. Now make a little hole in the pastry, stick the nozzle of the piping bag through, and fill each Bossche bol with the cream.

  10. Brush the tops with the cocoa mixture.

Tips

  • Use only pure Dutch cocoa powder, not sweetened! If you'd like to use melted chocolate instead, here's how to melt chocolate.
  • Vanilla pods are expensive. Don't discard the other half of the vanilla pod and seeds. Instead, use it to flavor sugar.
Nutrition Facts (per serving)
428 Calories
33g Fat
28g Carbs
6g Protein
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Nutrition Facts
Servings: 6
Amount per serving
Calories 428
% Daily Value*
Total Fat 33g 43%
Saturated Fat 20g 102%
Cholesterol 153mg 51%
Sodium 377mg 16%
Total Carbohydrate 28g 10%
Dietary Fiber 1g 2%
Total Sugars 20g
Protein 6g
Vitamin C 0mg 1%
Calcium 45mg 3%
Iron 1mg 7%
Potassium 95mg 2%
*The % Daily Value (DV) tells you how much a nutrient in a food serving contributes to a daily diet. 2,000 calories a day is used for general nutrition advice.
(Nutrition information is calculated using an ingredient database and should be considered an estimate.)

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