Chocolate Windbags

Ingredients

• 50 g butter
• 2 tbsp sugar
• 1 pinch salt
• 180 g flour
• 1 tsp Baking powder
• 4 eggs
• 2 tbsp cocoa powder
• 250 ml whipping cream (30%)
• 1 Vanilla bean
• 4 egg yolks
• 100 g sugar
• 250 g butter
• 150 g dark chocolate (70%)

Instructions

1. 1.

   For the dough, bring 250 ml water with the butter, sugar and salt to a boil. Add all of the flour at once, then add the cocoa and stir vigorously over low heat until the mixture separates from the pot as a lump. Transfer the mixture into a bowl, whisk in the eggs one at a time. Finally fold in the baking powder.

2. 2.

   Preheat the oven to 200°C (400°F) with both fan and top heating.

3. 3.

   Fill a piping bag with the Brand dough and pipe twenty walnut-sized mounds onto a sheet of parchment paper on a baking tray. Bake in the preheated oven for about 25 minutes. Remove from the oven, cut each mound crosswise (but keep them together) and let cool.

4. 4.

   For the cream, bring the cream with the split vanilla bean to a boil, then remove from heat and let steep. Whisk the egg yolks with the sugar until fluffy, gradually add the hot cream while whisking, pour back into the pot and stir over gentle heat with a rubber spatula until creamy; do not boil. Strain through a sieve and cool to room temperature. Beat the warm butter with an electric mixer until light and frothy, then fold in the vanilla cream gradually. Chop the dark chocolate, melt it over a double boiler and let cool again. Mix the cooled chocolate into the cream and fill a piping bag fitted with a large star tip. Pipe the mixture onto the lower half of each windbag and place the tops on top.