Eclairs

I had a week off from work and since I had nowhere to go and no one to go with...I baked.  With all this extra time on my hands, I wanted to bake something that I thought would be a little bit challenging so I chose Eclairs.  I didn't think Eclairs would be too hard to make until I watched an episode of "Chelsea New Zealand's Hottest Home Baker" where they had to make choux pastry and they were all nervous because apparently even the best pastry chefs have trouble with it.  My baking skills are pretty average so I was prepared for an epic fail.

I don't know if you can tell from this picture but this is the first batch that went into they oven.  They puffed up perfectly and it looked like they were burning so I took them out early and they deflated like balloons lol.  Making the pastry is a pretty simple process but it's the baking part you have to worry about.  When I put in my second batch, I decided to cover them with a sheet of tin foil about halfway though to stop them from burning but still allow them to continue baking.  I learnt that the pastry has to dry out on the inside so it doesn't collapse.

My second batch turned out better but to be honest, no one is going to care if the pastry is flat when you fill it with the cream and coat it with chocolate NOM! These are dangerously addictive.  Picture is slightly out-of-focus because it was about 5pm and I didn't have a lot of daylight left but I HAD to take a photo of it because my family was home and the eclairs would've been all eaten before the chocolate had time to set. No joke.  I think I messed up the chocolate part (too runny?) because I didn't read the instructions properly. My bad.  It still tasted good, I mean, it's pastry, cream and chocolate...how could that not taste good?

I even had a little bit of pastry left over to make some cream puffs.

Eclairs Recipe

Ingredients

For the Choux Pastry

1 cup flour 

a pinch of salt
1 cup cold water
80g unsalted butter, cubed
3 large eggs, lightly beaten

For the Cream Filling

500ml cream

1/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla essence

For the Chocolate Icing

150g dark chocolate
60g soft unsalted butter
1/4 cup boiling water

Method

1. Sift flour and salt onto a piece of paper. Place the water and butter into a saucepan and heat until butter melts.
2. Bring liquid to a boil then quickly put in all the flour at once. Remove the pan from the heat and beat just enough to bring the mixture together into a smooth dough.
3. Turn the mixture into a bowl and leave to cool for 10 minutes. With an electric mixer, beat the eggs, in small amounts, into the cooled mixture. Continue beating until the mixture is very glossy.
4. Preheat oven to 200ºC. Line two baking trays with nonstick baking paper.  Sprinkle trays with cold water to create steam during cooking as this will help the choux pastry rise.  Spoon or pipe onto prepared baking trays.
5. Bake for 15 minutes until puffed, then reduce oven to 180ºC and cook for a further 30 minutes until dry inside and golden brown.
6. Remove from the oven and using a knife, pierce a hole in the base of each choux puff. Cool on a wire rack.  
7. For the filling, whip the cream, vanilla essence and sugar together.
8. For the icing, melt chocolate and water together over very low heat until just melted. Beat in softened butter. 
9. For the assembly, carefully cut each eclair in half, fill with whipped cream and spread a thin layer of icing onto each eclair.

Enjoy :)

♡ B