I was introduced by a colleague at work on the Daring Bakers blogroll and instantly it gave me some inspiration to go back again to my baking routine (at least once a month). My baking skills has been put on the side for sometime now due to other priorities (as usual, work is the biggest culprit!). It has been a long time also since I last posted so here is my resurrection to Blogger dashboard...
The August challenge is to make Chocolate Eclairs. The first time I read the mail i was both excited and worried. Excited because, I LOOOOVE chocolate eclairs! Worried because, the steps seem to be complicated and my confidence in baking has never been that high. For awhile I thought, being "daring" could be too ambitious but, I've never really done any baking so, why am I thinking too much?
There are 3 components in completing this recipe a.) bake the cream puff dough b.) make the chocolate pastry cream and c.) prepare the chocolate glaze. So I started out with planning (btw, this is one of my better skills) what ingredients to buy and what equipments to use. We just moved to another condo unit and it doesn't have any oven so, 3 months ago, we bought a 5-in-1 convection/convention/microwave /steamer/griller. Baking choco eclairs would be my chance to finally encounter my fear of using this machine (God knows i'm the worst person to operate these gadgets).
The challenge host specifically instructed to follow the same pastry recipe and to have something chocolate (whether the cream filling or the glaze). As a freshman in this blogroll, I decided to follow exactly the given recipe and maybe just sprinkle some nuts on top to create a difference (the recipe is based on Pierre Herme's "Chocolate Desserts" and i'll tell you more about it in a little while). So I have the ingredients, the equipment, the recipe, and the positive attitude that I can conquer!
It took me 2 days to actually complete. The first day is an "opportunity for improvement" and the second, is the final verdict. My hours in the kitchen was equally challenged by the tug-of-war I'm having with my toddler because he wants to be the daring baker himself ( i regret i didn't have a video on this one). Going back to day one, I had a couple of shortcomings on the following (1) My puff pastry is too small. It is too small in fact that i cannot slice it into half to put the choco pastry cream inside. I followed the suggested step of using a pastry bag fitted with a plain tip nozzle to create chubby finger shaped pastry but somehow I created tiny fingerlings:-) (2) My choco pastry cream is like choco water with floating eggs! I did not get the technique of "tempering" (mixing raw eggs with hot milk) and also I thought the solution is still very hot (that's why the floating eggs) that I did not bring it back to low heat to dissolve the cornstarch and thicken the sauce. The worse thing is, I have been so unfit that i cannot withstand whisking the solution vigorously (it says without stopping, how could any human possibly do that?).
I had to avenge my frustration the following day so I woke up early and decided to start again. Luckily, i had an early foresight for the worse case scenario so I put aside 1/2 portion of the puff dough in the freezer ( told you, planning is one of my better skills) . My focus on day 2 is to make the pastry cream right. After careful tempering and vigorous whisking (whew!), I finally got it! I feel so elated that I almost shouted "Eureka!". The shape and size of my pastry dough has also improved. Instead of using the pastry bag with the nozzle, I placed the dough in a clean sandwhich bag, pushed it on one edge, cut the tip and drawn the right shape of the dough to the baking sheet. I was also proud with how the dough "puffed" up considering that, I don't know how even was the temperature in the oven. While waiting for the cream puff and also cooling the choco cream, i worked on the choco glaze (while my son was busy licking the chocolate). When everything is done, the final step is to assemble the product so, I opened up the cream puff into half, piped in the choco cream, placed the other half of the cream puff on top, dipped in the glaze (i dipped it upright to avoid the mess), placed the almonds on top of the glaze, chilled it in the fridge while i looked for batteries to ready my camera for my first daring bakers blog and whooah! here come's my son with (at the speed of lightning) already enjoying his first chocolate eclair...
P.S. As I am on a deadline to post this by today, I opted to just blog here the experience rather than outline the recipe itslef. If I have the time, I will re-post this to include the more detailed recipe. If you're dying to get the recipe :-), a better alternative would be, to join the gang at Daring Bakers!
