Sunday, February 5, 2012

Lavender Vanilla French Eclairs


Ingredients:

  Pastry Shell:
  1 Cup + 1 Tbsp Water
  1/4 tsp salt
  7 Tbsp Butter cut up
  1 Cup (minus 1 Tbsp) Sifted flour
  4 Beaten Eggs

  Chocolate Cream Filling:
  2 Cups + 2 Tbsp Milk
  1/4 cup + 1 Tbsp Sugar
  4 Egg Yolks
  1 Tsp Cocoa powder
  1/2 tsp Vanilla Extract
  2 Tbsp Flour Sifted

  Fondant/ Chocolate Glaze:
  6 oz Melted Chocolate chips
  2 Tbsp Melted Butter
  1/4 cup powdered sugar
  2 Tbsp Water

Preheat oven 410 degrees

Shell Pastry:
* In a saucepan boil water & salt. Add butter in cubed pieces. When melted pour all flour in at one time, reduce heat to med.
*Combine with wooden spoon until all flour is absorbed and remove from heat.
*Allow to cool and slowly add eggs (these should be prebeaten and at room temp). Adding 1/2 the eggs at a time helps. When adding the second half of the eggs, I switched to a whisk, it helped a lot.
*Add pastry mix to pastry bag or zip lock bag with the end cut off. Pipe onto a baking sheet that's been greased or parchment paper. (I use a silicone baking sheet.) Should make between 8-12 medium to small eclairs.
*Place in oven and bake 30 minutes without opening door.
*Remove and poke holes on both end of the eclairs with a toothpick. This allows the steam to escape so they don't get mushy inside.

Pastry Cream Filling:
*Mix Yolks, sugar, vanilla and flour in a medium bowl.
*Warm the milk and cocoa in a small sauce pan until you see some steam come off the milk. Do this on med-low heat slowly.
*pour milk over yolk mixture, stir to combine and the pour back into sauce pan.
*Bring to a soft bowl where you'll see bubbles popping up the side of your sauce pan. After a few pops give it an easy stir and remove from heat. It will thicken more as it cools.
*When cool, cut tops off of eclairs and fill with the cream and place the tops back on them.

Chocolate Glaze:
*Combine water and powdered sugar to dissolve and set aside.
*In another bowl combine chocolate chips and butter. Put in microwave for 1 minute, stopping every 15 second to stir until melted.
*Add the dissolved sugar to the chocolate and mix until combined.
*Use to frost the top of the eclairs and allow to cool on counter or in fridge before serving.

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