Daring Bakers: Chocolate Éclairs

My very first Daring Bakers Challenge! Although I'm really thrill about this month's challenge, Chocolate Éclairs, I'm a little disappointed at myself. As you can tell by my disappointing picture taking skills and arrangement of the eclairs, these were not made with 100% love and devotion =( I really wanted to take the time to perfect my eclairs, but this month and especially this week has been crazy. I was up for 20 hours on Friday! I'm hoping I'll be able to focus more on next month's challenge.



As mention above, Chocolate Éclairs were selected as this month's challenge. The recipe was chosen by Tony Tahhan of Olive Juice and Meeta K of What's for Lunch Honey? Please check out the Daring Bakers Challenge blogroll to see other baker's eclairs. Some of them are just to die for!

Pierre Hermé’s Chocolate Éclairs
Recipe from Chocolate Desserts by Pierre Hermé
(makes 20-24 Éclairs)

• Cream Puff Dough (see below for recipe), fresh and still warm

1) Preheat your oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Divide the oven into thirds by
positioning the racks in the upper and lower half of the oven. Line two baking sheets with
waxed or parchment paper.

2) Fill a large pastry bag fitted with a 2/3 (2cm) plain tip nozzle with the warm cream puff dough.
Pipe the dough onto the baking sheets in long, 4 to 41/2 inches (about 11 cm) chubby fingers.
Leave about 2 inches (5 cm) space in between each dough strip to allow them room to puff.
The dough should give you enough to pipe 20-24 éclairs.

3) Slide both the baking sheets into the oven and bake for 7 minutes. After the 7 minutes, slip the
handle of a wooden spoon into the door to keep in ajar. When the éclairs have been in the
oven for a total of 12 minutes, rotate the sheets top to bottom and front to back. Continue
baking for a further 8 minutes or until the éclairs are puffed, golden and firm. The total baking
time should be approximately 20 minutes.

Notes:
1) The éclairs can be kept in a cool, dry place for several hours before filling.

Assembling the éclairs:

• Chocolate glaze (see below for recipe)
• Chocolate pastry cream (see below for recipe)

1) Slice the éclairs horizontally, using a serrated knife and a gently sawing motion. Set aside the
bottoms and place the tops on a rack over a piece of parchment paper.

2) The glaze should be barely warm to the touch (between 95 – 104 degrees F or 35 – 40
degrees C, as measured on an instant read thermometer). Spread the glaze over the tops of
the éclairs using a metal icing spatula. Allow the tops to set and in the meantime fill the
bottoms with the pastry cream.

3) Pipe or spoon the pastry cream into the bottoms of the éclairs. Make sure you fill the bottoms
with enough cream to mound above the pastry. Place the glazed tops onto the pastry cream
and wriggle gently to settle them.

Notes:
1) If you have chilled your chocolate glaze, reheat by placing it in a bowl over simmering water,
stirring it gently with a wooden spoon. Do not stir too vigorously as you do not want to create
bubbles.

2) The éclairs should be served as soon as they have been filled.

Pierre Hermé’s Cream Puff Dough
Recipe from Chocolate Desserts by Pierre Hermé
(makes 20-24 Éclairs)

• ½ cup (125g) whole milk
• ½ cup (125g) water
• 1 stick (4 ounces; 115g) unsalted butter, cut into 8 pieces
• ¼ teaspoon sugar
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• 1 cup (140g) all-purpose flour
• 5 large eggs, at room temperature

1) In a heavy bottomed medium saucepan, bring the milk, water, butter, sugar and salt to the
boil.

2) Once the mixture is at a rolling boil, add all of the flour at once, reduce the heat to medium
and start to stir the mixture vigorously with a wooden spoon. The dough comes together very
quickly. Do not worry if a slight crust forms at the bottom of the pan, it’s supposed to. You
need to carry on stirring for a further 2-3 minutes to dry the dough. After this time the dough
will be very soft and smooth.

3) Transfer the dough into a bowl of a mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, or using your
handmixer or if you still have the energy, continue by hand. Add the eggs one at a time,
beating after each egg has been added to incorporate it into the dough.
You will notice that after you have added the first egg, the dough will separate, once again do
not worry. As you keep working the dough, it will come back all together again by the time you
have added the third egg. In the end the dough should be thick and shiny and when lifted it
should fall back into the bowl in a ribbon.

4) The dough should be still warm. It is now ready to be used for the éclairs as directed above.

Notes:
1) Once the dough is made you need to shape it immediately.

2) You can pipe the dough and the freeze it. Simply pipe the dough onto parchment-lined baking
sheets and slide the sheets into the freezer. Once the dough is completely frozen, transfer the
piped shapes into freezer bags. They can be kept in the freezer for up to a month.

Chocolate Pastry Cream
Recipe from Chocolate Desserts by PierreHermé
**NOTE I did not add bittersweet chocolate to my cream

• 2 cups (500g) whole milk
• 4 large egg yolks
• 6 tbsp (75g) sugar
• 3 tablespoons cornstarch, sifted
• 7 oz (200g) bittersweet chocolate, preferably Velrhona Guanaja, melted
• 2½ tbsp (1¼ oz: 40g) unsalted butter, at room temperature

1) In a small saucepan, bring the milk to a boil. In the meantime, combine the yolks, sugar and cornstarch together and whisk in a heavy‐bottomed saucepan.

2) Once the milk has reached a boil, temper the yolks by whisking a couple spoonfuls of the hot milk into the yolk mixture.Continue whisking and slowly pour the rest of the milk into the tempered yolk mixture.

3) Strain the mixture back into the saucepan to remove any egg that may have scrambled. Place the pan over medium heat and whisk vigorously (without stop) until the mixture returns to a boil. Keep whisking vigorously for 1 to 2 more minutes (still over medium heat).Stir in the melted chocolate and then remove the pan from the heat.

4) Scrape the pastry cream into a small bowl and set it in an ice‐water bath to stop the cooking process. Make sure to continue stirring the mixture at this point so that it remains smooth.

5) Once the cream has reached a temperature of 140 F remove from the ice‐water bath and stir in the butter in three or four installments. Return the cream to the ice‐water bath to continue cooling, stirring occasionally, until it has completely cooled. The cream is now ready to use or store in the fridge.

[bNotes:[/b]
1) The pastry cream can be made 2‐3 days in advance and stored in the refrigerator.

2) In order to avoid a skin forming on the pastry cream, cover with plastic wrap pressed onto the cream.

3) Tempering the eggs raises the temperature of the eggs slowly so that they do not scramble.

Chocolate Glaze
Recipe from Chocolate Desserts by Pierre Hermé
(makes 1 cup or 300g)

• 1/3 cup (80g) heavy cream
• 3½ oz (100g) bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
• 4 tsp (20 g) unsalted butter, cut into 4 pieces, at room temperature
• 7 tbsp (110 g) Chocolate Sauce (recipe below), warm or at room temperature

1)In a small saucepan, bring the heavy cream to a boil. Remove from the heat and slowly begin to add the chocolate, stirring with a wooden spoon or spatula.

2) Stirring gently, stir in the butter, piece by piece followed by the chocolate sauce.

Notes:
1) If the chocolate glaze is too cool (i.e. not liquid enough) you may heat it briefly
 in the microwave or over a double boiler. A double boiler is basically a bowl sitting over (not touching) simmering water.

2) It is best to glaze the eclairs after the glaze is made, but if you are pressed for time, you can make the glaze a couple days ahead of time, store it in the fridge and bring it up to the proper temperature (95 to 104 F) when ready to glaze.

My Blueberry Blues

Blueberries, the perfect summer fruit? Some might disagree and I'll admit watermelon was definitely a serious competitor for this title, but in terms of versatility...blueberries came out on top. It's the perfect teammate for yogurt, that extra ingredient that makes pancakes even more wonderful, delicious as a sauce for pork chops, and for me it gave me a reason to make French Toast with Apple Berry Topping, Counterfeit Blueberry Muffin Tops, and Blueberry infused Gin.

Before I go further, I must apologize for my lack of posting. August has been one crazy month and I wish I could say I will be posting more in September, but I can't. I will be in Japan for 2.5 weeks! I will be doing shorter posts as I eat my way through the country. This will be my second time in Japan. I was there about 2 years ago and was lucky enough to be able to stay there for the whole summer. Look forward to my posts in Japan in September! I shall return to my love of blueberries now.





Anyone a Seinfeld fan? Well if you are, all I have to say is "top of the muffin to you!" I love muffin tops and what better than muffin tops but blueberry muffin tops. Unfortunately mines came up sort of confused.



Too short to be a muffin and too tall to be a muffin top. I'm going to call it my Counterfeit Blueberry Muffin Top. I couldn't figure out what went wrong. Did I put too much batter in the pan? For the second batched I put less, but the result didn't changed much as you see below (the 1st batch is on the left and the 2nd batch is on the right). Too much baking powder? I just didn't know. It tasted fine though and actually pretty good. The crumble topping was buttery and golden brown. The batter wasn't too sweet and let the blueberry flavor shined. So what happen?





What happen was I miss read. I am a newbie to the world of muffin top baking. I had no idea there were baking pans designed especially for baking muffin tops. Who knew right? Please nod your head as you are reading this. Actually, I'm going to blame this on my utter thrill and excitement for blueberries. Yup, I am refusing to take responsibility for this embarrassment.


Counterfeit Blueberry Muffin Tops

Recipe courtesy of Gourmet Magazine: Blueberry Muffin Tops*

*to get that confused and counterfeit look for you muffin tops, just bake the batter in a regular muffin pan


Now lets move on to my French Toast with Apple Berry Topping.



French toast is just sexy. It's simple, beautiful, and is guarantee to gain you some ooohs and ahhs especially when piles of fruits and maple syrupy is on top. I didn't have any maple syrupy with me and instead turned to a mixture of apple, plums, strawberries, and orange juice.


French Toast with Apple Berry Topping

Apple Berry Topping

Ingredients:
Apple
Plum
Strawberries
Fresh squeeze orange juice
Orange zest
Cane Sugar (if cane sugar is not available regular granulated can be use)
Water

Cut apple into medium size cubes. Peel and cut plum into medium size cubes as well. Cut strawberries into quarters.

Place apple, plum, and strawberries into a pan.

Squeeze fresh orange juice, add orange zest, and about half a cup of water in the pan as well.

Turn the heat up and add about 1/4 cup of cane sugar. As the sugar begins to dissolve, taste and adjust flavors as needed.

When the sugar is dissolve and the sauce begins to thicken, turn the heat off and set aside.


French Toast
(serves 1)

Ingredients:
2 large slices of day old Brioche bread
1 egg
1/2 cup of milk
1/2 tablespoon vanilla extract
1/2 tablespoon sugar
Sprinkle of cinnamon
Pinch of salt

In a shallow plate, beat egg and then whisk in milk, vanilla extract, sugar, cinnamon, and salt.

Soak the slice bread in the mixture one at a time and allow excess to drip off. Make sure the each slice gets a good soak in the mixture, about 30 second on each side.

In a pan heat up oil and add in the soaked slices of bread.

Depending on the thickness of your bread, it should take a minute or less on each side. Toast will be ready when it turns a nice golden brown.

Place done french toasts on a plate. Spoon a good amount of the Apple Berry Topping on top and sprinkle with fresh blueberries.



What better way to end this post then with some Blueberry infused Gin. This picture was taken a little less then 2 weeks ago. The gin has now turned a lovely purple color and it's almost ready to come out of its hibernation from my fridge. Oh I already have some lovely ideas for it, but that's for another post.

What is your favorite summer fruit? Do you have a favorite way of cooking or eating blueberries?

Hot buns coming through!

The Asian bakery. The one place I know I can turn to if I had less than $2 and need to be filled up. Roast pork bun, egg custard tart, red bean bun, taro bread, pineapple bun, small sections and slices of cakes, red bean ice, bubble tea, milk tea...I can go on and on. I truly believe that bakeries, and not just Asian ones, are truly the original fast (and good for you) food establishments.


A few months back while searching for a cake recipe for my dad's birthday/father's day cake, I stumble upon Mandy's blog Fresh from the Oven and her post on Caterpillar Bread. WOW!! Not the cake recipe I was looking for, but I knew it was something I wanted and NEEDED to make in the future. So this Monday I gave it a tried and it was my first time making bread.





Baking = stress for me. I really want to enjoy every step of it, but something always happens. As you can see, mines look a tad deform =( Flavor wise, I was quit happy =) Although I think I did add a bit too much salt and I over worked the dough. Eat and learn!





I used the same dough recipe and also made another Asian bakery favorite of mine, the Corn and Ham Bun.


Corn and Ham Bun

Ingredients:
Basic sweet bun dough recipe from Fresh from the Oven
Ham
Corn
Shredded cheese
Mayonnaise

Take a piece of the dough, around 70g, and roll it into an oblong shape.

Cut the dough in half, the long way, but leave about less than a quarter inch of the top intact.

Criss cross the two pieces and then wrap the piece around and around to form a circle. (As seen below in first picture to the left)

Mix shredded cheese and mayonnaise together and spread that mixture on top of the buns.

Cube the ham and sprinkle that and the corn on top of the bun.

Bake in a 375degrees oven for about 15 to 20 minutes or until golden brown.





I had about 3 pieces of dough left and decided to experiment with some seaweed. This gives me an idea for my next adventure in bread baking.





Have you ever been to an Asian bakery? What do you like to get? Any tips for a first time bread baker?