Chocolate Éclairs, etc.

     It has been quite a while now; between various holidays, having a cook resign at work and coordinating with my photographer; since I have been able to put together some pastries to post here. I had been all excited for desert pastries, and simply never got to start on them. So, without further ado: Chocolate eclairs.

     To begin, I'm not entirely happy with how these turned out. I was planning to use a large star tip to pipe them out, only to realize that my piping kit was missing some key pieces - namely the large star. I made do with what I had, but the end result was slightly misshapen pastries that were thinner than I anticipated.

     The pictured pastry was among the last to be glazed, resulting in spotty coverage due to a chocolate glaze that was running out, and nearly too thick. I was however, happy with the sheen of the glazes, both the chocolate giving off the noticeable reflections and the apricot glaze; nearly invisible, as it is mostly covered by the chocolate, but lending a reflection or two to the top of the eclair.

     Another thing worth noting is the Creme Parisienne, or chocolate whipped cream, which I built slightly differently from the recipe in the book. I had been playing around with sauces and had a ton of chocolate sauce left over. Rather than chopping new chocolate - in a food processor that I don't have - I flavored the cream with my left over chocolate sauce. In the end, the eclairs were very tasty, if not the prettiest product I've ever made. The combination of the various flavors and textures was delicious and satisfying. You can't see it, but theres strawberry jam piped into the bottom of each eclair, offsetting the cream and chocolate beautifully, and the pate a choux was indelibly crisp, despite its shape.

     Oh, also, when the recipe calls for a batch of choux paste, it actually means a small batch. I ended up making a lot of eclairs.

     There was another pastry that I put together that day, however, it's going to be surprising my wonderful sister and her soon-to-be husband at their wedding this Saturday, along with some more pastries that I am still assembling. So, I won't be posting the pictures here just yet.

     The sauces that I had been playing with were actually for that pastry, and since I had been plating it anyhow for the pictures, I ended up playing with them on the eclair plate, after it had been consumed.

     The random hearts pattern has always been one of my favorites, and in the interest of not having only one thing pictured here until next week, I decided to include it.

     Hope you enjoyed this. Congratulations again to Jana and Ollie, my beautiful sister, soon-to-be brother, and friends.