Cream Puffs With Chocolate Sauce - cream puffs

Method

• For the Cream Puffs:
• Heat the first four ingredients in a medium saucepan over medium high heat just until the milk starts to boil. Lower the heat to low and then dump in all the flour at once and stir with a wooden spoon. The dough will pull together. Cook for a couple of minutes, stirring the ball of dough around, so that it dries out. Remove the dough and place it either in the bowl of a stand mixer or the bowl of a food processor and let the dough cool off for a few minutes.
• Line a baking sheet with either a Silpat or parchment paper (I like parchment paper because I can just throw it away). Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.
• With the mixer running, add the eggs to the dough one at a time. It's important that you let each egg incorporate fully into the dough before adding the next one. The dough will look curdled and weird - don't worry about it. After all four eggs are added, mix until the dough forms a nice paste consistency. It will be very loose, not at all like a bread dough. (If you do not have either a mixer or some kind or a food processor, you can beat in the eggs one at a time with a spoon. It just is a little more work).
• Put the dough into a piping bag fitted with a large tip (I like using a star tip). If you don't have a piping bag, you can just spoon the dough onto the baking sheet. Pipe the dough into mounds about 2 to 2-1/2 inches wide. Beat the egg for the egg wash with just about a tablespoon of water. Brush the mounds of pastry dough lightly with the egg wash.
• Bake at 375 degrees F for about 25 minutes, or until the puffs are a nice golden brown. Turn off the heat and open the oven door a few inches and let the puffs sit in the turned off oven to dry out for about 30 minutes.
• * If you are not sure about your egg size (especially if you get eggs from a farm), I weighed my eggs after I broke them into a cup and they weighed a little over 5 ounces. This does not have to be exact.
• For the Chocolate Sauce:
• Heat the cream and chocolate just until it scalds (bubbles will form on the outside perimeter of the pot). Turn off heat, add extract and whisk until chocolate is smooth.
• This sauce can be kept in the refrigerator a few days - just bring to room temperature to serve because it firms up when it is cold.
• Assemble:
• Cut cream puffs in half. Place a scoop of any kind of ice cream on the bottom half, place the top on and drizzle with chocolate sauce.