A Spoonful of Sugar

...Or Profiteroles filled with Strawberry-Balsamic Gelato..

Summer in Britain always means strawberries and cream. Tonnes of the ruby red berries are devoured every June at Wimbledon alone and in households across the country as eager tennis fans settle down in front of the TV, bowl and spoon in hand, to soak up the sporting glamour. Or is that just me?

When I saw that this month's Hay Hay! It's Donna Day! (HHDD #20) was choux-themed, I immediately thought of filling little profiteroles with strawberries and cream, but then that seemed a little ubiquitous. So I toyed with the idea of stuffing choux buns with roasted butternut squash in a garlic-cream sauce, but that wasn't very summery and Dave felt it would be a grave waste of the choux. My next idea was coffee choux buns like the ones they sell at our local SPAR, but less sickly-sweet. Somehow that didn't seem quite right. And then I had the idea of stuffing the choux with strawberry ice-cream but with a little twist... Strawberries and balsamic vinegar are a delicious combination that is as traditional in Italy as strawberries and cream are in the UK. So, I combined those three delicious flavours into strawberry gelato with balsamic vinegar.

For the gelato you need to splash out on some good aged balsamic vinegar. The best you can afford, ideally. I bought a bottle of 18 year-old aceto balsamico di Modena which was rich, complex and very syrupy. (It left a delicious layer behind on the spoon when I drizzled some over risotto earlier this week.)

For those of you who are a bit squeamish about the whole vinegar/strawberries thing... the gelato doesn't taste vinegary. The balsamic lifts the gelato beyond plain old strawberry ice-cream, giving it a deeper flavour and a certain je ne sais quoi. While I had the ice-cream machine out I made a very similar recipe, using Greek yoghurt in place of the cream, and significantly more balsamic which was incredible. More on that another day.

The choux buns/profiteroles gave me far more trouble than making the two ice-creams. I used the Donna Hay recipe that Suzanne did, but the paste was too runny after just four eggs—large, admittedly—so I opted out of adding the fifth. I think four medium eggs or three large eggs would have done the job nicely. As it was, my choux paste was running out of my piping bag as I was filling it. Still, they've turned out pretty well in the end. They look and taste like choux which is all one can ask for, really. (I baked some leftover chilled paste this morning and they came out beautifully, so if your paste is too runny you can always try chilling overnight before baking.)

To serve, I dressed the plate with some balsamic glaze, sliced a choux bun in half and filled the base with some thinly sliced strawberries. A scoop of gelato followed, then I popped the top of the bun back on and sprinkled some icing sugar over. Dave thought it would have been nice to have drizzled some extra glaze in the top of the bun as a surprise when eating; I may well try that later on.

Of course, for the die-hard strawberries and cream lovers out there, an extra spoonful of whipped (or clotted) cream wouldn't go amiss. After all, it is strawberry season...