These Irish Cream Profiteroles are piped full of a beautiful Bailey’s Irish Cream pastry cream and topped with an easy chocolate glaze. These cream puffs are the perfect St. Patrick’s Day dessert (but great all year round!)!
I am loving these Bailey’s Irish cream cream puffs more than I reasonably should.
I have a lot of truly wonderful friends, and each one fills some sort of special role in my life. My friendship with my friend Maureen (The Eclair Girl) is unique to all of my other friendships in that she is the only one that I can really talk about pastry with.
We ask each other questions, bitch when something doesn’t work, and trade recipes. I got a text from her two days ago, with an ethereal picture of the most beautiful little chocolate topped creampuffs that I had ever seen, with the caption, “Irish Cream Profiteroles”!
Now, I’m not one to go bananas over writing posts for all the different holidays. I’ll do it to a degree, a cookie recipe here or there, maybe some recipes for Thanksgiving dinner, but I don’t devote a whole week or month to it – and lately it seems as though you can’t click anywhere on the Internet without seeing the recipe featuring Guinness or Bailey’s or Irish whiskey or the like.
I had no plans to make food or dessert in celebration of St. Packrick’s Day, or really celebrate it at all (somehow its just not as much fun after having a child. It’s all fun and games until you have to get up and be a parent at 7 am.)
However, once I saw those little puffball of delights filled with a beautiful Bailey’s pastry cream– I knew I had to get to work.
Made this yesterday and I have to say, they are probably in the top few dishes that I’ve ever made. They even evoked a “Wow, these are REALLY good!” out of Dave, who rarely remarks on things that I make anymore (as he says, “Everything is always good!”), so when I get a real, unprovoked accolade- THAT is really saying something.
These are made with pâte au choux, the same dough that we used for the gougères and the chocolate eclairs. It gets piped on the cookie sheet in slightly larger rounds, which bake up big, beautiful and hollow. Then get filled with the delicious Bailey’s cream and topped with chocolate ganache. I guarantee if you take these to your St. patties day party, you’ll be the other star of the show.
Note: this is not a dessert that will sit out well at room temperature for a while (more than 1-2 hours), the filling will melt slightly because of the Bailey’s. Still good, just not as fluffy. Best to store in the refrigerator (which you would have to do long-term anyway because of the cream).
Updated 3-5-18: I have changed the recipe a little from my original post- I no longer recommend making these with my Bailey’s cream. The whipped cream+ Bailey’s Irish cream was just too finicky to recommend to everyone.
In order to work, you have to freeze your bowl, have VERY cold, VERY fresh heavy whipping cream, and whip it to VERY stiff peaks. It’s actually an easier filling to make, but unless you do it right, you’ll end up with a soupy filling that doesn’t stand up prettily.
I suspect it has something to do with the addition of the Irish cream.
In lieu of the whipped cream filling, I ended up making more of an Irish cream/mousse filling. I used the filling from my eclairs as a base recipe, then whipped a cup of cream to lighten it up. It worked great!
If you like these Irish Cream Profiteroles, look at these:
Bailey’s Cream Puffs
Ingredients
- 1 cup water
- 1 stick butter
- pinch salt
- 1 cup flour
- 4 eggs
- 1 1/2 cup cream
- 1 1/2 cup powdered sugar
- 1 tsp cocoa
- 1/4 cup Bailey’s Irish Cream
- 2/3 cup semi sweet chocolate chips
- 1/3 cup sugar
- 1/3 cup cream
- 2 T butter
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 425F.
- In a saucepan over medium heat, melt the butter into the water and add the salt.
- When the butter has melted, dump in all the flour and stir briskly with a wooden spoon until the dough pulls away from the sides of the pan and forms a ball.
- Transfer to stand mixer and cool slightly. Turn your mixer on medium speed and add the eggs one a time, waiting to add the next egg until the previous one has fully incorporated
- Scoop the mixture into a large piping bag. Prepare two cookie sheets by either spraying with nonstick spray, lining with parchment paper, or using a nonstick silicone liner. Pipe the dough into two inch mounds on the sheets, leaving 3 inches between mounds. Place in the oven and bake for 25-30 minutes, rotating trays halfway through, until the pastries are golden brown and feel solid when you touch them. Cool, then cut each one through horizontally about 2/3 of the way.
- In the bowl of a stand mixture. whip the cream and powdered sugar together until it looks like a thick whipped cream. Add the cocoa and, while the mixer is running, slowly add the Bailey’s.
- Transfer to a piping bag and fill the profiteroles with the cream.
- For the ganache- add the cream and sugar to a small saucepan over medium-low heat, stirring until the sugar has dissolved. In a separate bowl, add the chocolate chips and butter. Pour the cream into the bowl with the chocolate chips, allow to stand for about 30 seconds, then stir until the mixture is smooth and no lumps remain. Microwave an 30 seconds, if needed, if the chocolate will not fully melt. Spoon the ganache over the filled profiteroles.
Stacey @ Bake Eat Repeat says
Those look amazing! I love the irish cream filling, that would be so good! And they’re beautiful! 🙂
Jen @ Baked by an Introvert says
I love homemade profiteroles! These are stunning and I bet that Irish cream filling is delicious!
Eszter @ Hungarian recipes says
Your profiteroles are GORGEOUS! Irish Cream filling sounds tasty.
Go Go Go Gourmet says
Thank you!
Sandy says
Would love to try them but the ingredients are missing in the recipe. Even it you hit shopping list a different recipe comes up.
Jacqueline says
Hi Sandy! Sorry about that. It’s a bug that is currently being fixed. They should be there for you now though.
Julia says
How far in advance can these be made? If I made them Sunday, would they still be good for Tuesday?
Jacqueline says
No, they’re best made same day.