To prepare the Italian Chantilly cream, heat the milk with the lemon zest. Beat the egg yolks with 80 g of sugar in a heavy-bottomed saucepan. Add the flour, sifted through a sieve, and continue stirring with the whisk until you obtain a creamy, smooth mixture, without lumps. When the milk comes to the boil, take it off the stove, remove the lemon zest and gradually pour it into the saucepan with the egg mixture, stirring continuously. Now bring it almost to the boil, removing it from the heat just before it begins. Let the pastry cream cool a little and then cover the surface (in contact with it) with cling film, to prevent a “skin” forming, and leave to cool down completely. Whip the cream to stiff peaks with 20 g of sugar. For a perfect result, both the cream and the whisks should be nice and cold. Fold the whipped cream into the pastry cream a little at a time, so the mixture remains as light as possible. The Chantilly should now be thick and fluffy... ready for filling the profiteroles. To do so, use a pastry syringe or a piping bag, or, more simply, cut off the bottom of the choux balls, use a teaspoon to fill them, and then close them again. Arrange the profiteroles in a pyramid shape, piling them up on a round serving dish. Now you have to cover the “bongo” (as profiteroles are known in Florence) with chocolate sauce. Heat the remaining cream in a small saucepan, remove it from the stove just before il boils and add the plain chocolate broken in pieces. Stir with a whisk until smooth and homogenous. Leave to cool for a few minutes and then pour the chocolate sauce over the profiteroles, or drizzle it over them using a spoon. Put the “bongo” in the fridge for at least a couple of hours and take it out about 20 minutes before serving. It’s a yummy, delicious, mouth-watering dessert that will delight your guests.

Homemade choux pastry balls

Ingredients for roughly 20:

• 62 g water
• 2 medium sized eggs
• 1 pinch of salt
• 55 g butter
• 77 g plain flour
• 8 g sugar
• 62 g full-fat milk
• 1 egg yolk to brush the pastry with

Put the water, milk, sugar and salt into a saucepan, add the butter cut into pieces and bring to the boil. When the liquid reaches boiling point, add the flour all at once and stir with a spatula or a wooden spoon until the mixture comes away from the sides. A white coating should form on the bottom of the saucepan (it will take 2 to 3 minutes). Transfer the mixture into a bowl and add one egg at a time, making sure that the first one has been completely absorbed before adding the second one; don’t worry if the mixture seems to separate at the beginning, just keep stirring. Now put the choux pastry dough into a piping bag with a smooth nozzle (approx. 1 cm in diameter) and use it to form walnut-sized balls, well-spaced apart, on a baking tray lined with greaseproof paper. Using a wet spoon, flatten them slightly on top, and then brush the surface with a mixture of egg yolk beaten together with a little water. Preheat the oven (if possible, fan-assisted) to 220 °C, then reduce the temperature to 180 °C, put the tray of choux pastry balls in and bake for 20 to 25 minutes. When cooked, remove them from the oven and leave to cool down completely before using.