Ricotta Cream Puffs:

You do need to remember several things here. The chocolate sauce must be made in advance, but you can make it a few days ahead if you like. The cream puffs themselves tend to get soggy if they are stored at room temperature for any length of time, even airtight, so you can either make them just before you plan to serve them, or you can freeze them and reheat them to crisp them up a bit. The filling should be made no more than an hour or two before you plan to use it, and the assembled dessert should be served immediately. You can make a small pool of sauce on each dessert plate, top it with a filled cream puff, and pass any extra sauce to pour on top as wished. Alternatively, you can use a larger plate with a pool of sauce. Make a ring of filled puffs on top of the sauce, but don't use them all; the idea here is to stack successively smaller rings of filled puffs on top of one another. Bring to the table, then pour a bit more sauce over the top of the stack; pass any remaining sauce for everyone to use as they like. And if the puffs do get a bit soggy, it isn't a big deal--people will be too busy eating them to notice.

Chocolate Sauce:

9 ozs. good-quality semisweet chocolate, chopped
3 Tbsp. light corn syrup
Few grains salt
1 cup plus 2 Tbsp. heavy cream
1 to 2 Tbsp. orange liqueur

Cream Puffs:

3/4 cup water
1/4 cup whole milk
1 Tbsp. granulated sugar
Pinch salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, cut into 8 pats
1-1/4 cups sifted all-purpose flour
4 eggs, graded "large", at room temperature (the eggs must not be too cold)

Filling:

1-1/4 cups ricotta (whole milk or part skim)
3/4 cup confectioners' sugar
You might need: 1 Tbsp. orange liqueur
Grated zest 1 orange (no white pith)
1/2 cup miniature semisweet chocolate chips
1 cup heavy cream

For chocolate sauce, combine chopped chocolate, light corn syrup, and salt in medium heatproof bowl. Heat cream until very hot; pour about 1/2 of hot cream into chocolate. Place bowl of chocolate over simmering water on low heat (water should not touch bottom of bowl), and whisk often until melted. Gradually whisk in remaining cream. Remove from heat and hot water. Whisk in orange liqueur. Cool briefly at room temperature, then chill. Store in refrigerator, tightly covered, until needed.

To make cream puffs, line a baking sheet (at least 15-1/2 x 10-1/2 inches) with parchment paper; have ready another baking sheet of the same size or slightly larger. Place the parchment-lined baking sheet on top of the empty baking sheet (cream puffs are baked on a double sheet to keep their bottoms from becoming too brown). Preheat oven to 425 degrees F. Adjust rack to center of oven.

In heavy-bottomed 2 quart pot, combine water, milk, sugar, and salt. Bring to boil over medium-high heat, stirring to dissolve sugar and salt. Add and melt butter pats; return mixture to a boil. Remove from heat. All at once, add flour, and beat in well with large spoon. This will become very thick.

Place pot back on burner over LOW heat. Stir flour mixture for a minute or two, until it becomes one mass and pulls away from the sides of the pot. Remove from heat. Place this mixture by spoonfuls into a medium bowl, and cool for 10 minutes (the cooling time is important--if the mixture is too hot when the eggs are added, they might scramble).

One at a time, add eggs and beat in thoroughly. If you prefer, you can do this with a powerful hand-held electric mixer, but I always do it by hand with a large spoon. When all eggs have been added, mixture should be a thick, smooth paste.

Divide into twelve mounds onto baking sheet. Once dough is portioned out, go back and quickly round mounds if necessary, piling them up a bit to give them more height (be sure to wet your fingertips frequently to prevent dough from sticking). Place doubled baking sheet in preheated oven; bake cream puffs 10 minutes. Without opening oven door, REDUCE HEAT TO 350 DEGREES F; bake about 30 minutes longer, or until well-risen, puffed, and golden brown (check after about 20 minutes at 350 degrees F). When puffs are baked, reach into oven with small, very sharp knife, and slit each puff once or twice (horizontally) about 1/3 of the way down from the top. TURN OVEN OFF, but leave puffs in oven for 20 minutes longer.

After 20 minutes standing time, remove puffs from oven. Cool puffs on cooling rack just until you can handle them (this shouldn't take long). With very sharp, serrated knife, slice off top third of each puff. If there are any filaments of uncooked dough inside (this happens a lot), remove what you can with a spoon, but don't dig too deeply or you'll cut into the shell itself. When puffs are completely cool, fill and serve (If you're going to freeze the puffs, you can do so when they're still a bit warm. Lay them out on a wax paper lined baking sheet. Freeze; when frozen, transfer to an airtight plastic bag or carton.).

To make filling, place ricotta and confectioners' sugar in container of food processor fitted with steel blade. Process at high speed for three bursts of twenty seconds each, scraping down container with rubber spatula in between. If ricotta is very dry, you may need to add a tablespoon of orange liqueur to enable the food processor to work more easily. When the ricotta mixture is perfectly smooth, turn into medium nonreactive bowl; stir in orange zest and chocolate chips.

In chilled medium bowl with chilled beaters, whip cream until very stiff. Gently fold into ricotta mixture. Use immediately, or cover and chill for no more than 1-2 hours.

To assemble dessert: have ready the ricotta filling, and either 12 small dessert plates or one large one--you'll need something with sides, but it should be shallow. Get the sauce ready; you'll need it to be just warm enough to pour, but you don't want it hot. To heat sauce, place in small bowl over simmering water on low heat (water should not touch bottom of bowl); stir very frequently just until pourable. Remove from heat and hot water, and set aside at room temperature. (Alternatively, scrape sauce into a microwaveable container. Microwave at 50% (medium) power for 30 seconds. Stir well. Microwave at medium power for further short intervals if required, stirring well after each, just until sauce is warm enough to pour.) You might want to have a small pitcher or bowl ready to pour any remaining sauce into after you've made pools of sauce on the plate(s). If the cream puffs were frozen, line a cookie sheet with aluminum foil and preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Place the frozen puffs on the cookie sheet and warm in the oven for 8-10 minutes, just until thawed and crisp. While they heat, you can ready the dessert plate(s) by pouring enough sauce onto the bottom to form a shallow pool; if necessary, spread evenly with back of a spoon.

When the puffs are thawed and crisp, immediately remove from oven and place on cooling rack. Cool completely (this should only take a few minutes). Stuff the lower 2/3 of each puff with ricotta filling, and place the top 1/3 on as a cap; you should be able to see filling between the cap and the bottom. Quickly place each puff on the pool of sauce on a dessert plate (or stack on the large plate). If you like, you can pour a bit more sauce on the individual servings, but don't drown them in it! Quickly transfer any remaining sauce to small pitcher, if desired, and serve immediately.

12 cream puffs (12 servings)