Eclairs

Here is my attempt at making eclairs with the help of my sister Tracy. The recipes are from foodgawker.com

Pastry Cream:
3 cups milk
6 large egg yolks
9 tablespoons sugar
4.5 tablespoons cornstarch
5 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3 tablespoons instant coffee or espresso
3 tablespoon matcha

In a small mixing bowl, whisk the egg yolks, sugar and cornstarch together. In a small pot, heat the milk on medium until it starts to simmer. Turn the heat off and move the pot away from heat. With one hand, ladle some of the hot milk into the egg mixture as you are continuously whisking with the other hand. This process is called tempering, and keeps the eggs yolks from scrambling. Keep tempering until the egg mixture feels warm. At this point, it is safe to pour all of the milk into the egg mixture. Then, pour the custard mixture back into the pot, using a strainer to catch any eggs pieces that did scramble. Heat the pot on medium and stir for around 3 minutes, when the custard will suddenly get thicker. Then, remove the pot from heat. Separate the cream into batches if you want different flavors. For vanilla, we added extract straight in. For the matcha and coffee, we mixed the powders with some hot water, and then added them into the cream. You can make this a day ahead (that's what we did). To store, use plastic wrap to touch the whole surface of the pastry cream, otherwise a film will develop on top of the cream.


Chocolate ganache:
1/2 cup heavy cream
4-5 ounces dark chocolate, in chips or chopped
1 tablespoon corn syrup (optional)

Heat the cream in the microwave till you start to see bubbles (around 30 seconds for me). Mix the chocolate and cream in a medium bowl. Keep stirring until the mixture is smooth. Add the corn syrup for additional shine.

Choux Pastry Dough:
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup water
1 stick unsalted butter, cut into 8 pieces
1/4 teaspoon sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup (140g) all-purpose flour
5 large eggs, at room temperature

1. Prep your pans. Use parchment paper to line your pans. It helps to use a little swipe of butter under the paper to keep the paper from curling and moving around.

2. Combine the milk, water, butter, sugar and salt in a pot and bring to a boil. Then, add your flout all at once and stir the dough for 3 minutes to dry the dough out.

3. Transfer the dough to an electric mixer. You could also try an electric hand mixer or doing it completely by hand. Mix the dough on a medium speed, adding the eggs one at a time. At the end when you lift the mixer paddle out, the dough will rip in shreds and made a V shaped-tip.


4. Preheat your oven to 375. Fill the pastry dough in a pastry piping bag, or you can try using a ziploc bag with a small tip cut off one corner. We made mini-eclairs, so each one was piped out to 2 inches long. Tracy had the star-shaped tip, and I had the plain one. If you mess up, you can scrape it and put it back in the bag!



5. Bake for about 15 minutes, rotate the pans, and bake for another 5-10 minutes. When they looked lightly browned, turn off the oven and leave the pans inside with the door ajar. After 15 minutes, you can take out the eclairs. While you are waiting for the eclairs to bake, make your chocolate ganache.


6. When the shells have completely cooled, you can pipe. We made a hole in the side with a knife and then piped our cream. Other people make holes in the bottom of the shell and then fill it. Then, hold the eclair upside down and dip into a bowl of chocolate ganache. Keep the eclairs refrigerated and enjoy.