We took a short break from trying out new things, but now we are back and attempted a baked good we have never made before. Eclair's. Have you had an eclair? This is a French pastry, its delicious; but especially delicious the day you make them, nice and fresh.
This pastry is made with a dough that is light, bakes slightly hollow; and should be crisp/dry. It is filled with a buttercream or custard, usually flavored; and is typically delicious. The pastry used is called Choux (sounds like shoe) and from what I've seen, and read, about it; it can be quite difficult to perfect. This particular pastry is made quite often in the great British baking show, making it even more intimidating to attempt for the first time.
On this particular day I had a friend join so we could both attempt eclairs for the first time together. It went really well actually! We had a great time and the eclairs turned out the way they should :). The Choux is a different type of dough as you mix it over heat; so you partially cook this dough while you are combining it. I did alot of research on this dough; and while I read alot implying that it is a finicky dough; I was able to make it without an incredible amount of difficulty.
For the filling we made a coffee custard. It is similar to making the custard for creme brûlée, but for this custard you whisk quite frequently; and the custard thickens while you are whisking. It was quite neat to see happen. Once the eclairs have baked, and we took one out of each batch to cut and test, we let them cool and then added the custard.
This was also the first time I used a pastry bag and tip. We had a pastry tip that was a little smaller than what is recommended for eclair's but it did work. You can fill the eclairs two different ways that I read. One was to cut the eclairs lengthwise and fill with the custard, replacing the top. The other is to poke a hole in the bottom and fill that way. We chose the second way; to give ourselves a greater challenge ;). It seemed to work well. I will say, since we had smaller eclair's than is typical; I poked straight through the tip of the eclairs a few times; but they still turned out.
This particular recipe called for a coffee mascarpone cream topping. We did not do that. We simply melted some chocolate and dipped them for the topping; which also turned out great but did make the coffee flavoring a bit less strong than we had hoped. Ultimately this was a success and I will be making them again, and more than likely adding the coffee mascarpone cream on top. I'm quite excited to bake these again; cant wait to perfect them!
https://beyondoursky.com/2017/07/01/%EF%BB%BFcoffee-eclairs/
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