Profiteroles Using Wolf Auto Steam Bake Setting

I love Profiteroles! I remember the first time I had them at Legal Seafood in Boston many years ago and I thought they were the best dessert.

So, of course, I began making them and searching for the best recipe I could find.

Last weekend for Labor Day I used a recipe I found on Chow.com. The pâte à choux dough was what I was used to making in other recipes.

Instead of following the recipe baking instructions I decided to use the Wolf Auto Steam Bake Setting to bake the pastry dough.

The recipe called for heating the oven to 425 F, then when placing the baking sheet in the oven reducing the heat to 350 F and baking for 45 to 50 minutes.

I did not do that! This was the experiment…

How do you modify an existing recipe that doesn’t know steam baking exists?

So…

I followed the Wolf Use and Care Guide instructions for the Auto Steam Bake setting.

I put the baking sheet with the pastry dough into a cold oven. I set the Mode to Auto Steam Bake with a 350 F temperature. I set the timer to 35 minutes because I am leaning that this oven needs much less time when baking.

The Wolf oven game me NO indication of how much time it would take to perfectly cook my cream puffs. Could I trust it? So, I watched and waited. The oven steamed the pastry for at least 10 minutes then changed to full convection mode.

The timer went off at 35 minutes and the pastry was a golden brown. I waited another 5 minutes and decided to pull them out of the oven when they were a deep golden brown – still not sure they were completely done inside.

I let them cool on a rack and sliced one in half horizontally. It was perfect inside!

Here is what the final presentation looked like:

I simply cut the pastry in half and filled them with good quality store bought ice cream. The chocolate ganache on top was one of the best I have made. One of the differences was the addition of coco powder.

I would make this version of Profiteroles again. And I would use the Wolf Auto Steam Bake setting. This turned out to be yet another step in my education on the nuances of the Wolf Steam Convention Oven!

What has been your experience using the Wolf Auto Steam Bake setting? Leave a comment below.