Happy Father's Day!
Today is such a special day to celebrate and be thankful for our daddy's and I certainly appreciate mine!
We are having a BBQ at mom and dad's to celebrate and I'm in charge of desserts (of course!) My daddy LOVES eclairs - especially from French's Bakery - so I decided to try my hand at them today. I wasn't quite sure what went into making eclairs. I knew there was dough, filling, and chocolate on top but the process was so different than what I am used to! Let's just say it was a long morning!
I got lucky and only had to buy a few items at the grocery store and loved the recipe I found from allrecipes.com. This is the original recipe but I changed the ingredients below to show what you need for each part of the eclair. The recipe says 9 but I made 11. Mine were probably smaller than the original.
The dough was easy to make but needs your full attention the whole time! The process is quick and the hardest part for me was stirring in the eggs one at a time. The dough got very difficult to stir and I felt like I needed Mike to come and stir for me! (Yay for lack up upper body strength!) Once done I filled one of my fancy disposable piping bags from Michael's with the dough (Thanks for the tip, Aunt Carmi!) and made each eclair about 5 inches long. They don't rise or expand very much so I could have fit more on a pan than I did but they turned out alright!
When you take the eclairs out of the oven, use a toothpick to poke a hole into each end of the pastry to let steam out so they aren't soggy after they cool!
The filling was very easy to make and tasted delicious!
My trouble came with the chocolate. After adding the powdered sugar, my frosting looked like 'puppy chow' without the Chex in it. I'm not proud but as my elementary teachers taught me - "It's okay to make mistakes, that's the way we learn!" I tossed it in the trash and tried again. This time I melted the chocolate and butter at an even lower temperature on the stove and found out once I started adding the tablespoons of hot water, it became the beautiful, creamy chocolate I was looking for.
Eclairs!!
Pastry
- 1/2 cup butter
- 1 cup water
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 4 eggs
- Preheat oven to 450 degrees F (230 degrees C). Grease a cookie sheet.
- In a medium saucepan, combine 1/2 cup butter and 1 cup water. Bring to a boil, stirring until butter melts completely. Reduce heat to low, and add flour and salt. Stir vigorously until mixture leaves the sides of the pan and begins to form a stiff ball. Remove from heat. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well to incorporate completely after each addition. With a spoon or a pastry bag fitted with a No. 10, or larger, tip, spoon or pipe dough onto cookie sheet in 1 1/2 x 4 inch strips.
- Bake 15 minutes in the preheated oven, then reduce heat to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C) and bake 20 minutes more, until hollow sounding when lightly tapped on the bottom. Cool completely on a wire rack.
Filling
- 1 (5 ounce) package instant vanilla pudding mix
- 2 1/2 cups cold milk
- 1 cup heavy cream
- 1/4 cup confectioners' sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Chocolate Frosting
- 2 (1 ounce) squares semisweet chocolate
- 2 tablespoons butter
- 1 cup confectioners' sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 3 tablespoons hot water
I know they aren't French's, I know they aren't the most beautiful, but I did it! I made eclairs! Mike and I tested one and he said he liked it as much as he could like an eclair (he doesn't like eclairs) but the real test will be the family tonight - especially the King of Eclairs, Daddy!
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