About a week ago I got a major craving for a chocolate eclair.
When I was a kid, a chocolate eclair was always my order at our local doughnut shop. In those days I was invincible when it came to food. I could eat half a dozen doughnuts, play hard all day and not miss a beat or gain a pound.
Now at the ripe old age of 38, one doughnut is a one way ticket to feeling like I’ve gained ten pounds and need a long nap.
Therefore, when this craving came last week, I opted to make a cream puff pastry in its place. It’s lighter, flakier and, unlike a doughnut, it won’t make you hate your life choices after you eat it.
To make my little eclair/ cream puffs, I used a borrowed recipe, a tried and true food staple and one of my own simple recipes.
What I ended up with was a light, flaky, rich and delicious dessert that is also hella impressive.
Wanna bake some cream puffs with me? Awesome.
Here’s how I did it:
The first thing I did was go to google and I searched “how to make a cream puff” and I stumbled upon this AWESOME instructional video from www.joyofbaking.com
I love cooking from videos because I tend to I learn more by watching rather than by reading. Videos are especially helpful when baking since there is such a science to getting your dough just right.
The gal in this video, Stephanie Jaworski, is pleasant, warm and easy to watch.
Watch the video and get your pastries in the oven. Then we’ll meet back here.
How awesome is Stephanie? I learned so much from her.
Now while your puffs are baking you have a very important decision to make:
Homemade pudding or Jello instant pudding?
For me the choice is easy.
While I’m sure I could easily make a vanilla pudding that would be delicious, I opt not to.
Why?
Because Jell-O nailed it.
I’m not really trying to reinvent the wheel here so I am going to save myself some time and whip up a box of Jell-O instant vanilla pudding. I encourage you to do the same.
Once your cream puffs are COMPLETELY cooled down, take a pairing knife and cut the tops off of each puff. Now you should have a cream puff “cup” and a little “hat” to put on top.
Put your well chilled pudding in a Ziplock bag. Squeeze out most of the air and seal the bag. Snip about a half an inch off of one of the corners and VOILA you now have a pastry bag.
(Don’t you feel all kinds of professional now? Me too.)
Fill each pastry cup with the pudding. You want them to be overfilled so that the pudding still shows once you put its little hat on.
Now we’re gonna make the Chocolate Glaze:
Take half a bar (4 oz) of semi-sweet baking chocolate and chop it up with your chefs’ knife. Put it in a bowl.
Heat a half a cup of heavy whipping cream in a small saucepan over medium heat.
As soon as the cream begins to lightly boil, remove it from heat.
Now pour that hot cream into the bowl of chocolate. Stir until smooth.
Now take a teaspoon and drizzle the chocolate glaze on the cream puff tops.
BOOM.
You should now have approximately twelve adorable, little puffs.
Feed them to your peeps, take some pics and let me know how they turned out!
I knew you could do it!
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