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31 Aug
Daring Bakers do Chocolate Eclairs
Posted by Chelle as Chocolate, Custard Desserts, Daring Bakers, Pastries
Chocolate Éclairs by Pierre Hermé.
Classic éclairs.
Chocolate pastry cream.
Chocolate glaze.
Hosted by Meeta of What’s for Lunch Honey? and Tony of Tony Tahhan, I was pretty excited when this month’s challenge was announced, as it wasn’t a layer cake and didn’t include a substantial amount of ground nuts. Score. I had made éclairs once previously and they were fabulous, so I was really looking forward to tackling these, especially since they included chocolate pastry cream instead of the traditional vanilla pastry cream that is usually found in the middle of éclairs. I bought a special piping tip to use to fill the middle of the eclairs (instead of slicing them open) and was ready to go.
Alas, don’t be fooled by the picture above; I would not consider this a successful challenge!
Unfortunately, the fun tip couldn’t be put to good use. You see, this is what I ended up with:
Flat little lady-finger-like-éclair-wannabes. They were so flat that my filling tip couldn’t get through the entire éclair, only able to fill about an inch on either end. So I cut the rest of them open to fill them. And then I tried to diagnose the problem. I went back and looked at the Pâte à Choux recipe I used previously and compared them. Although the prior recipe yields less eclairs, the proportion of ingredients looks to be about the same (nothing glaringly different). The biggest difference seems to lie in the baking method. My successful éclairs were baked at 425°, while these were baked at 375°, and for some reason Pierre Hermé has you do all kinds of crazy oven gymnastics while these are baking: bake for a little bit then stick a spoon in the door to prop it open, bake a little more then go in and rotate the baking sheets (after which it doesn’t say whether or not to remove or keep the spoon in the door), then bake a little more and take out of the oven. The Baking Illustrated version left the door closed (at the higher temperature) the entire time, and then once the baking is complete had you prop open the door to let the eclairs dry out fully. This seems to make much more sense to me, and obviously resulted in a superior product.
And now the chocolate pastry cream. It was really, really, REALLY good. In fact, after looking at my flat éclair wannabes, I thought that a big ol’ scoop of chocolate pastry cream with some whipped cream on top seemed like a more appetizing dessert ;-) Totally worthy of being eaten straight from the bowl with a spoon. However, again, the recipe seemed to include all sorts of crazy things that I (in my oh-so-humble, non-expert opinion) didn’t think was necessary. It had you strain the cream immediately after whisking the hot milk into the egg mixture (I skipped this step), then it had you cool the cream in an ice bath before whisking in the butter. The recipe says you needed to cool the mixture to 140 degrees, but after putting it in the ice bath and sticking my instant read thermometer into the cream it only read 125 degrees. So again, an unnecessary step. Then once you whisk in the butter you are to return it to the ice bath to cool completely. About 1 minute after sticking it in the ice bath the cream was already extremely cool and had formed a slight skin (big no-no in the land of pastry cream!).
After all of the obstacles, I gave them a try.
The verdict? I didn’t care for them at all. While the chocolate was good, I was too hung up on the eclairs themselves. They didn’t dry out properly, they were limp and soft, and tasted suspiciously eggy. And while the chocolate pastry cream was really good, I do think that I prefer the traditional vanilla cream filling with a chocolate glaze on top.
While I wouldn’t consider this a great successful challenge, it did serve one purpose: it cemented my belief that the original éclairs I made are a GREAT recipe and one that I will use as my standard going forward!
If you are interested in seeing the recipes used for this challenge, you can find them on Meeta’s or Tony’s websites. In keeping with the ideals of my blog, I’ll only post recipes here that I think are great, and believe that my readers would enjoy and derive success from.
I didn’t go with the chocolate pastry cream knowing Grumpy wouldn’t want to eat it then….but, a bowl of the pastry cream with whipped cream sounds great to me also!
Ahh, I am bummed for you. I had the same problem with the dough using Dorie’s recipe - it flopped! It’s funny, sometimes the directions are so complicated and they just don’t need to be -
Your eclairs look good, sorry they didnt taste right. I am going to have to make the other recipes you made before. the look good and a bit easier to deal with in the oven.
eggy was the theme of this pastry. too bad too since we spent all this time preparing it!
It’s so funny how there are such discrepancies in recipes. I’m looking forward to seeing the old eclair recipe with this new chocolate filling.
Seems that many others thought the choux was too eggy. I filled mine with so much chocolate pastry cream that I probably couldn’t tell. I must have missed that step with allowing the pastry cream to cool before adding the butter–I’ve always added the butter to the hot pastry cream. It was still great though and yes, I could have eaten that alone! Your eclairs look great! Wonderful job.
I noticed the eggy taste, as well, but the pastry cream was heaven!!
And your sauce looks divine!
I too noticed the egginess (is that even a word?), but at least you have a recipe that you know you love! I want to try your original recipe now.
Looks like lots of us had problems with this one. Yours look nice and chocolately tho.
your eclairs look so cute!
they pics look great, though i agree that dorie’s recipe is much better. not sure if you noticed, but the pastry cream is dorie’s recipe, only with a slight tweak - but since you skipped the ice bath, you basically made dorie’s version
Your eclairs look really good! I had the same problem with mine…they tasted really eggy and they totally flopped around. I made do…but like you, I have a recipe that I would rather stick to! BTW, I love your blog! I just found it! You have some great recipes I can’t wait to try!
Good cooks notes! Love your blog and thanks for the insight.
Nice post with all your thoughts. I didn’t have the same problems but I didn’t follow the baking instructions with the wooden spoon either. They do look lovely.
Not my finest baking moment either - but the pictures do belie the truth!
Hi,
This is my first time here, and I like your site.
Despite of your disappointment with the result, I think your eclairs look great!
That seems to be the general consensus — so so choux but awesome pastry cream.
Your eclairs look great!
wow! So glad I’ll be back to attempting challanges soon! These look delcous !
I think they look great, sorry you didn’t LOVE them. My husband loves eclairs, I think they are just okay and could live without them. It’s always the choux pastry I don’t like. Hmmm. Glad you’re happy with your original.
As a brown-eyed baker, myself, I couldn’t help but be drawn to your blog. Love it! Keep up the awesomeness - cheers!
You know, I wonder if this recipe just doesn’t puff as much b/c the instructions SAY to cut it in half rather than piping the filling in. Hmmm…just a thought. I’d rather they be puffy, too. Yours look fantastic!
I agree with you. Why does everything have to be so hard? My husband said my second batch looked like ladyfingers.
Your eclairs look pretty, sorry they didn’t taste so good. I had the same problem though.
Ooo, your eclairs look amazing! I’m sorry that you didn’t enjoy them.
Sorry these weren’t your favorite. They look good though! I am glad you have your own favorite recipe to go to!!
This is off the subject - but I just wanted to say GREAT choice for Barefoot Bloggers! I can’t wait to try the wild mushroom soup!
Yes those “interesting” instructions for the baking were rather confusing, weren’t they?
At least your eclairs look good.
I’ll have to agree: the recipe seemed to have many unnecessary hoops to jump through. I double checked all 3 components in Joy of Cooking and the eclairs could have been made with 1/2 the effort and certainly 1/2 the heartache!
And while my eclairs looked fantastic, but I feel that maybe I just don’t like eclairs.