Food Reward Friday

This week's lucky "winner"... profiteroles!!

Also called cream puffs and choux à la crème, this French-origin dessert combines a light puff pastry with a cream filling.  Those who have tried profiteroles know that one often leads to another!

Wheat flour is one of the most versatile ingredients for making highly palatable and rewarding foods.  Its ability to form an elastic dough allows it to trap air and bake into foods that appear light (because they're mostly air) but are actually quite calorie-dense (because the air goes away as you chew).  It also lends itself to homogenization with other seductive ingredients like fat and sugar.  This is why wheat flour is so ubiquitous in European cooking traditions.

Adding a cream filling to the flour-based puff increases its calorie density, fat content, and sugar content, and also creates a texture contrast-- leading to a very high reward value.  I can still remember the profiteroles my aunt made for a wedding when I was a young child, even though I remember little else about the wedding.  Highly rewarding foods create a strong imprint on our minds.

Hat tip to Rob Jamison for the idea.