Last weekend's project was "eclairs". I needed to revisit the dough I used for the cream puffs AND the recipe for the vanilla cream used to stuff them.
I remembered some lessons, forgot others and will need to do this again to keep improving. Not that I seem to run out of people willing to try the desserts...
All in all, this week's experiments tasted really good, I just need to work more on the appearance side of things. I would say that my major fault here is my impatience. I just want to go too fast. What is frustrating is that I KNOW I am going too fast as I do it but I can't seem to slow myself down. This was particularly the case with the chocolate ganache in this case.

For the eclairs, I used this recipe, it is a basic recipe, pretty easy to accomplish. That was not the issue. However, I'm always amazed at how hard it is to deal with oven temperatures and length of baking. See, this recipe is used to make little cream puffs, eclairs and many more other items. Everything is different, different sizes, different thickness, so the temperature and length of baking will be different for each one.
Now, as you are baking, it is not so hard to say "ok, a couple minutes more". What is hard though is to keep track of how you modify the time for the next time you want to do this. And I haven't even figured out how to play with the temperature. How do you know which temperature would be the best for your project?

One of the lessons I had learnt from making the cream puffs was that the size of the batter you put on the sheet does not change much when baking, it doesn't rise and double volume or anything close to that. So I made sure my eclairs were close to the size I wanted in my final product.

However, in my first batch, I poured the batter in a kind of rope and did a "folded" rope to ensure enough width. Well, the result was disappointing. The rope was not thick enough or high enough, which means those eclairs were flat. And the two parts of the rope did not mesh completely during baking, which gave me eclairs with a weird valley in the middle. This batch tasted good but looked horrible.

So for the second batch, I kept the pastry bag closer to the baking sheet and made sure to pour more batter. Frankly, I could have gone even further. I should have ended up with a sausage-like batter about one inch thick. The other thing is how hard it is to keep that pastry bag steady and pour the batter in a uniform way. I ended up with some funky shaped eclairs.

All in all, taste-wise, this was a success. Look-wise, well, there is still work to be done...

Technically, this was the easiest part, just melt chocolate and mix with some heavy cream. Once again, my impatience got the best of me and my chocolate was grainy and my ganache a bit too thick.

Now, I know why I was so impatient that day, it was the traditional day for crepes and I had guests over for crepes. Why did I start another project on the same day? Who knows but definitely not something to repeat. *embarrassed*

In the end, I'm glad to say I made eclairs. The taste was really good, so I know the recipes work, I just need to work on technique and appearance. and  PATIENCE!!!

There is hope!

What is your weakness when baking?

A classic of French pastry, it was time I tried it, especially when friends seem to make it so easily. So today, I did! I used this recipe recommended by my friend Anne-Laure.

First, I started with the cream, as it takes a long time to cool down.

Ingredients:

• 500ml of milk
• 1 pkg of vanilla sugar (= 1 tsp of vanilla extract)
• 2 tsp of vanilla extract
• 100g sugar
• 2 egg yolks
• 1 egg
• 50g of flour
• Pinch of salt
  

Preparation:

1. In a saucepan, bring to a soft boil the milk, vanilla sugar, vanilla extract and salt. Stir constantly to avoid burned milk on the bottom.
2. In the meantime, in a large bowl, combine the sugar, the egg yolks and the egg and mix them with a wooden spoon until it becomes a light yellow. 
3. Add the flour and mix.
4. Add the boiling milk a little at a time. Keep mixing.
5. Put everything back in the saucepan and put it back on the stove on low, stirring constantly, until it thickens.
6. Pour the cream in a bowl and let it cool. You can cover with saran wrap touching the cream to prevent a skin forming on the surface of the cream. Refrigerate when cooled to room temperature.
   

Notes:

• “until it thickens” is pretty vague, at least for me. How thick does it have to be? As I was waiting for the cream to get closer to a pudding consistency (still stirring), lumps began forming. Before the whole thing turned into a big lump, I transferred it to the bowl and used a whisk on the cream, which got rid of all the lumps. So, keep an eye on this. I guess practice makes perfect... this was the second attempt at pastry cream (see last week’s post) and it was much better than the first!!!!

Challenge this week: still work on pie crusts and expand. I decided to go for a traditional Belgian pie crust, and practice the "crème pâtissière", this vanilla cream one finds in pies and éclairs. I also took the opportunity to practice more on my piping with a homemade whip cream.