Chocolate Eclairs

Had a hankering for cream puffs the other day. Hubby and the kids also love cream puffs, so I decided to make a batch.

I've made puffs filled with fresh cream and also creme patisserie (vanilla pastry cream). I might try custard one day. This time however, I wanted to try making chocolate eclairs. There is a bakery near my shop which sells super delicious cream puffs filled with fresh cream. I decided to do the same but throw in a chocolate glaze to make them eclairs, since I adore chocolate and chocolate just makes everything even yummier dontcha think??!!

You can find the choux recipe for the buns here in my old post. Small round buns are called profiteroles and the larger ones are just choux buns. Eclairs traditionally come in finger shaped buns. Here are the recipes for the creme patisserie and chocolate glaze.

To make the cream patisserie:

1 1/4 cups whole milk
3 egg yolks
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/8 cup all-purpose flour
2 tablespoon plus 2 teaspoon cornstarch
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

In a small saucepan, warm the milk over low heat until it is just hot enough to steam. While the milk is warming, whisk together the egg yolks, sugar, flour, and cornstarch until the mixture is completely smooth.

Once the milk is steaming, add half of it, whisking constantly, to the egg mixture. Add the milk and eggs back into the hot milk, continue stirring, and heat it for 1-2 minutes, until the custard is very thick. Remove from the heat, stir in the vanilla extract, and chill before filling pastry.

To make the chocolate glaze:

4 oz semisweet chocolate, chopped
1/2 cup heavy cream

Place the chopped chocolate in a heat safe bowl and set aside. Heat the heavy cream just to boiling over low-medium heat and remove from the heat immediately. Pour the hot cream over the chopped chocolate and stir until it forms a thin, smooth consistency. Set the chocolate glaze aside at room temperature for about 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Minced Beef Pies

On Sunday I made some minced beef pies. I used the shortcrust pastry which I made earlier for the bases. Then I filled that with a minced meat filling and then topped it with mashed potatoes.

I rolled out the pastry and used a large round cookie cutter to cut circles. Then I pressed the circles into a non-stick muffin tray. I made a mistake by pulling and stretching the dough circles which caused them to shrink while I was fitting them into the muffin holes. This made the process quite frustrating!

For the filling, I stir fried some chopped onions with minced beef and added some tomato paste, a cup of instant beef and herbs gravy and some salt and black pepper to taste. I also used some red wine which rounds up the rich flavour of the beef. Oh yes, the mixture was a bit too watery, so I added some corn flour.

As a topping, I piped on some mashed potatoes using a star nozzle. It looked a bit 'poo-like' at first, but developed a nice pattern when the accents turned brown in the oven. You can use any mashed potato recipe you like. Here I used cream and a bit of salt and pepper with the potatoes.

The pies were lovely and the kids devoured them; except for Eva who's not into anything that actually requires chewing!

I might make these again, but maybe without the troublesome pastry!

Shortcrust pastry

Last night I made some sugar cookie dough for baking cookies today. You can get the recipe here.

I also made some shortcrust pastry to freeze, because I intend to make some pies and quiche next week. I love puff pastry, but just looking at the recipe makes me feel tired! It's so much work, I'm too lazy to attempt it! Anyway, here's the recipe for shortcrust pastry which is so simple and straight forward.

I used all butter and no lard though, because lard is not very healthy, but mainly because I didn't have any! :) I'm hoping it will still turn out okay when I bake it!

Shortcrust Pastry

Ingredients:
225g flour
50g lard
50g butter
1/2 tsp salt
40ml water


Sift the flour together with the salt, high above the mixing bowl to incorporate more air.


Place fats onto flour and cut fats into flour with round ended spatula. Continue cutting until fat pieces are pea sized and coated in flour.

Use fingertips (so as not to introduce unnecessary heat from palms of hands) to rub fats and flour together. Lift high and let mixture drop into bowl while rubbing.


When mixture resembles uniform sized breadcrumbs, add 10ml water and stir with spatula.

Add another 10ml water and stir with spatula.

Add another 10ml water and this time press down with spatula.

Add the last 10ml of water and bring dough together with hands.


Knead dough lightly for a few minutes on a floured surface until smooth.

Wrap with cling film and refrigerate for at least half an hour (for the gluten to develop) before use.

Yummy Cream Puffs or Profiteroles

My children love cream puffs. So the other day I tried to make a batch. I made the choux pastry buns and filled them with whipped cream. If I had more time, I would've liked to make some chocolate sauce to drizzle over the cream puffs! Yum.. The children loved them as they were anyway.

The pastry for cream puffs is called choux pastry and it's unique because you have to cook the dough before baking. I found it quite easy and straight forward to make.

Here's the recipe I used, which I got from my mum's book, 'Home Baking Made Easy':

Ingredients:

65 g plain flour
2 medium-sized eggs
50 g butter
a pinch of salt
150ml water
a few drops vanilla extract

Method:

1. Sift flour onto a piece of grease-proof paper. Place eggs in a basin and whisk lightly together.

2. Place butter, salt and water in a saucepan over a moderate heat. Bring slowly to the boil, stirring.

3. Quickly draw the pan off the heat and tip in all the flour. Beat with a wooden spoon until smooth.

4. Return to pan to a low heat and beat vigorously for 1-2 minutes until the mixture forms a smooth ball.

5. Draw pan off heat; allow to cool for 2 minutes. Beat in eggs a little at a time until incorporated.

6. Beat in vanilla extract. Spoon teaspoonful of the mixture on to baking sheet which has been lightly greased and dusted with flour.

7. Bake at 200 degrees C for 15 minutes, then 190 degrees C for 10 minutes.