Wednesday, November 6, 2013

Chocolate Eclairs



This traditional chocolate éclair recipe uses vanilla pastry cream as a filling and rich, almost ganache-like chocolate glaze. For this treat using a choux pastry dough for a base and getting that right is sometimes hard to get, i guess... this result is my third attempt... BUT This chocolate eclair recipe is beyond delicious, and attractive...
Choux Pastry:
1/2 cup (65 grams) all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon granulated white sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
4 tablespoons (55 grams) unsalted butter, cut into pieces
1/2 cup (120 ml) water
2 eggs, lightly beaten


Vanilla Pastry Cream:

1 ¼ cups whole milk
3 egg yolks
¼ cup granulated sugar
1/8 cup all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons plus 2 teaspoons cornstarch
1 teaspoon  vanilla extract



Chocolate Glaze:
2 ounces (55 grams) semi sweet chocolate, finely chopped
1/4 cup (60 ml) heavy whipping cream 
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 tablespoon light corn syrup (or golden syrup or glucose)

First make vanilla pastry cream, whisk together the egg yolks, sugar, flour, and cornstarch until the mixture is completely smooth.




In a small saucepan, warm the milk over low heat until it is just hot enough to steam.
Once the milk is steaming, add half of it, whisking constantly, to the egg mixture. Add the milk and eggs back into the hot milk, continue stirring, and heat it for 1-2 minutes, until the custard reaches 170F on a digital thermometer and is very thick. 

Remove from the heat, stir in the vanilla extract, and chill before filling pastry.


For Choux pastry:
In a bowl whisk the flour with the sugar and salt. Place the butter and water in a saucepan over medium high heat and bring to a boil. Remove from heat and, with a wooden spoon, add the flour mixture , all at once, and stir until combined. Return saucepan to the heat and stir constantly until the dough comes away from the sides of the pan and forms a thick smooth ball (about 1-2 minutes).


Transfer the dough to your electric mixer (can do this by hand or with a hand mixer), and beat on low speed to release the steam from the dough (about 1 minute).

Once the dough is lukewarm start adding the lightly beaten eggs (dough will separate and then come together) and continue to mix until you have a smooth thick paste (dough will fall from a spoon in a thick ribbon)

and i found here's the tricky part... make sure you dough is not hot that's its steaming if so as soon as you add egg they crumble..

Second most important thing to keep in mind is... don't add eggs at once, add little by little and stop when you get required consistency




Place the dough in a pastry bag fitted with a large plain tip and pipe 12 oblongs of dough (about 3/4 inch wide) onto the baking sheet. (When piping have the bag at a 45 degree angle.)


Preheat oven to 425 F bake for about 20 minutes, until the éclairs puff up and turn golden brown. Remove them from the oven and allow to cool on a wire rack for 20 minutes before filling.


I did some profit rolls as well...


To assemble the éclairs:
Fit a pastry bag with a medium-sized plain tip or I used cupcake filling tip and fill it with vanilla pastry cream. Insert the tip of the bag into the end of an éclair and pipe about 2 1/2 tablespoons of pastry cream into it. 

Chocolate Glaze: Place the chocolate in a heatproof bowl. Heat the cream just until boiling and immediately pour it over the chocolate. Gently stir until the chocolate has melted. Stir in the vanilla extract and corn syrup


Gently spread 1 tablespoon of chocolate glaze onto or carefully dip the top of each filled éclair into the glaze before serving.


and enjoy!




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