Choux Whore
I love choux (pronounced shoe, for those that are confused.) Its a fascinating thing… you cook it on the stove first and then bake it. When it bakes, it magically puffs and becomes hollow. Then you fill the hollow pastry with whatever your heart desires. Make them sweet by filling with whipped cream, pastry cream or even ice cream… or make them savory with a cheese filling. You can even deep fry the dough to make beignets or churros. What’s not to like? Choux is insanely versatile and a delicious vehicle for your favorite filling.
When I saw that Meeta and Tony chose eclairs for our Daring Baker Challenge this month, I was elated! If you can’t tell from my ode to choux above, its one of my favorite things to make/eat. The versatility of this pastry is what makes it so fabulous. The recipe came from Chocolate Desserts By Pierre Hermé. This recipe is over the top decadent, with a rich, dark chocolate pastry cream and dark chocolate glaze.
Although I love chocolate and this was delicious, I felt this was too chocolaty. What you say? Yes, too chocolaty. Perhaps the first time I’ve ever made such a shameful, shameful statement… but it was. Of course… Stephan and I suffered immensely, and ate each and every eclair, but in the back of my mind, I kept thinking about the “traditional” eclair with vanilla pastry cream and chocolate glaze. I’ll definitely have to make the more traditional version soon… very soon.
So… on to the recipe that you can find here. I’ll admit it… I altered a few things, for time and sanity’s sake. First, the glaze had way too many steps and seemed to make much more than I deemed necessary. It called for making a large vat of sauce that you use 7 tablespoons of said vat to add to another sauce, which becomes the glaze. Instead, I took equal parts (by weight) of Valrhona Dark chocolate and cream and made a basic ganache. Took me all of 3 minutes. So I didn’t follow the recipe… beat me with a wet noodle.
Also, I baked the first batch as the recipe indicated, for 7 minutes, slightly propped open the door for another 5 minutes and then rotated the pans and finished baking whilst singing “she’s be comin’ round the mountain”. OK, I made up that last part… it wasn’t in the recipe. In my opinion, it was way too time consuming and the outcome was, eh, not so good. The éclairs did not puff as much as they should. Since the method seemed so odd, I only baked a few this way. The next sheet-pan, I baked them with the convection feature for about 20 minutes, and they were almost double the original batch and were perfectly browned and loverly. Convection is definitely the way to go if you have it.
Also, as you can see in the pictures, I made them tiny, about 2 inches long. I feel tiny eclairs (as with other pastries) are ridiculously adorable, and it helps with portion control. Of course, you could (and I did) easily eat four or five (ten) without too much guilt. I’m not sure if that is good portion control, but I sure felt better. :P
All in all the recipes were good. The chocolate pastry cream was very chocolaty and great just eaten with a spoon, which I’m not ashamed to say I did. The choux recipe was also great, but I disagreed with the baking method. It just didn’t make sense… sorry Pierre. No worries, you’re still (and always will be) the pastry shizna in my book. If you would like to see the other daring baker’s eclairs, go here, or here to see all of my past daring baker posts.
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Your éclairs are gorgeous… and the pictures are stunning!!
FAB.U.LOUS.
The glaze/sauce thing made no sense to me, either. Gorgeous eclairs! Really, these look perfect.
Hi! Wow, I agree with you one everything you said about the recipe! The moment I saw chocolate glaze and chocolate pastry cream I was thinking ew…anyways, great job, gorgeous pictures, I especially like to see how much your choux rose!
Those are so cute! I agree with you about the baking method. I will try your way next time.
I did the EXACT same thing for my glaze. I just made a ganache because I felt the given recipe for the glaze was unnecessary. Your eclairs look gorgeous and I love the photos.
your eclairs look great. i am so jealous of the convection setting!
Candace, your tiny éclairs are lovely! You are so right about miniature food; it’s always more appealing.
Your eclairs turned out perfect!! I use a convection oven too and when I bake at other people’s house I am all messed up,ahahah!!
I envy the convection oven–and the ganache is so shiny. I wish I’d saved some time. They look phenomenal.
Convection, conviction - that’s defintely what worked best for this recipe :) I love your tiny eclairs!
Like a fool, I didn’t even think about using convection until well after I was finished with my eclairs! Yours look great and make me want to try again. Great job!
simply divine! but is there anything like too chocolatey? seriously though your mini eclairs look great and thanks for giving these a go!
I love everything mini and those are adorable. i actually though I was going to fin the all chocolate too much but actually not. I did fill one with white chocolate and that was my favourite though…
While I can’t understand how choux can be anyone’s ‘favourite thing to make’ (you madwoman!) looking at your beautiful eclairs sort of helps to explain… I’m so jealous of these!
I would have happily suffered along with you eating those too chocolaty eclairs!
Your Eclairs look very dainty and delicious! Great job!
Cheers,
Rosa
Too choclatey is certainly a better problem than not chocolatey enough.
wow… perfect for parties… i love your plate :)
Those look yummy!!! Love that three part plate. Great Job.
lovely candance! i also baked the eclairs according to my own intuition since I knew that opening the door after only a few minutes would not really work. So good for you!
Your eclairs look great! I made mine with traditional pastry cream, and it was good.
These are so adorable!! Great job.
oh my gosh, these are so cute and possibly the most enticing I’ve seen so far ^_^ heart heart!
Portion control was definitely an issue with me, too. Love the pictures and “your way” of making these :)
u’ve got really nicely puffed up eclairs!
Mmmmm…these look yummy. There is NO SUCH THING as too chocolatey!!
Anything that’s bite size and look as good as your mini eclairs are dangerously yummie.
I love your tiny little eclairs! And I think I’ve seen that dish - it looks spectacular in your photos! Now I must have it!
Yes, those mini ones are intensely adorable indeed! Love your photos!
Interesting, as many people said they were too chocolaty. The look cute as minis.
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