August Daring Bakers Challenge: Eclairs

This month's Daring Baker's Challenge was Eclairs! Exciting! There have been months when I've been less excited about the challenge, but I have to say that as soon as I read what it was I was very happy. I instantly relished the thought of making a Pâte à Choux, a pastry dough that I've yet to try.

The challenge this month was brought courtesy of Tony Tahhan and MeetaK. The recipe, by the infamous (and beloved by various food bloggers) Pierre Hermes, was pretty simple really. Three components come into play with an eclair: pastry dough (pate a choux), pastry cream, and chocolate glaze.

The only restrictions in this month's challenge

 1.      The dough used for the eclairs must be a pâte à choux from the recipe given.

And

 2.      Keep one chocolate element in the challenge. The recipe below is for a chocolate glaze and a chocolate pastry cream. You choose which chocolate element you want to keep.

Given that Ken and I had a 5 pound bag of Gravenstein apples from the Gravenstein Apple Festival, I decided to make my filling apple cinnamon pastry cream. I figured apples and chocolate go together, cinnamon and chocolate go together...apples, cinnamon and chocolate must all be friends. Why not invite them all to the party??

I started out with making the apple cinnamon mixture for my pastry cream. I chopped up about 3 apples really really small and cooked that with 1/4 cup of brown sugar and 1tb & 1/2 of cinnamon and about 1 tsp water. I ended up with a delicious and thick apple cinnamon caramel which I let cool. I made my pastry cream as per Mr. Hermes' instructions and then added the apple mixture and beat furiously to incorporate. Turned out yum.

Next I went on to my pâte à choux. Super easy to make. I really thought this would be the most difficult part to get right, but it came together extremely fast both times.

Both times?

Yes.

The first batch of eclair shells came out cute. Small, but cute. They were puffy and seemed "golden and firm". However the second I put them on the counter and turned around they totally flattened. I'm not talking about a little bit here folks, I'm talking about pan.cake.

I later read that I could have just put them back in the oven and they would have puffed up...but I didn't know this at the time, so I trashed the first batch and started again.

The second batch of dough came out the same, I piped them differently though since I had seen the first batch and how small they had come out. I wanted big puffs, so I made fewer but larger puffs.

This time I baked them as per the instructions, turning them half way through, but instead I baked them for about 10 minutes longer than instructed and without leaving the door of the oven open. Additionally, when the final 10 minutes were up, I poked a small hole in each of them with a skewer and left them in the oven to cool with the door open.

I nervously kept looking at them in the oven, but they turned out perfectly. I thought about piping in the filling, but seeing as it had little pieces of apple in it, I didn't want to clog my piping bag. I followed Pierre's directions and dutifully cut them in half.

I spooned in my apple cinnamon pastry cream and dipped the tops in the chocolate glaze. Even though the recipe says to use an offset spatula, I wanted complete coverage and while the glaze was still warm, it seemed smarter to dip.

The final result was pretty good. Not bad for my first time making eclairs! Hopefully next month's challenge will be as fruitful and fun!

Comments

[Beth]

I'm glad that your second batch turned out better for you.

[Rebecca]

Ooh, these puffs look great. I bet a caramel glaze would be delicious with your apple-cinnamon pastry cream, too. Perfect for fall!

[Ashley]

Wow apple cinnamon pastry cream!! Brilliant. I would love to try one of these! Sorry to hear your first batch turned to pancakes though now it seems like you are quite the skilled cream puff baker!

[Kristen]

Hey there - adopt a blogger matches are up on my blog.
Thanks for participating!

[Ivy]

Hey, guess what? We have been matched together and I am so glad to meet you. Shall be looking around your blog to find more things about you.