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Tuesday, March 28, 2006

Eclairs et choux a la vanille

[Vanilla eclairs and choux buns]
Adapted from Feast (Nigella Lawson), Mes 100 recettes de gateaux (Christophe Felder) and Mes desserts au chocolat (Pierre Herme)

I hate to fail with something - especially when it comes to the cooking realm.
I remember my vain attempt at making a piece montee for my sister's birthday. I had to face the truth - i utterly failed. I tried again and again (making pate a choux at least twice in one afternoon), but the result was always the same: the choux rose in the oven then fell flat. It was what i can now call a disaster.

Something like a month ago i decided i should try again. So i did. And though it wasn't as successful as i expected, the choux weren't flat at all and tasted great.

But this time, the problem was the icing; can you imagine i used cold water to bind the icing sugar? This resulted in an awful grainy icing.

Eclairs a la vanille
makes 12 eclairs
I like the way Pierre Herme cooks his eclairs - with the open oven door so that they don't get soggy or flat at all.
As for the creme patissiere, i must say i am addicted to Christophe Felder's. It's so light and creamy.

For the pate a choux
125g water
125g milk
5g salt
2 pinches of caster sugar
125g butter
4 large eggs

Preheat the oven to 200C and line two baking sheets with parchement paper or better still silicon baking mat.
Put the water, milk, salt, sugar and butter in a large sauce pan and heat until the butter is melted and the water has just begun to boil. Take the pan off the heat and add all the flour in one go.
Beat with a wooden spoon and put the pan back to the heat for 2-3 minutes; you should get a smooth ball. Turn off the heat.
Now beat in the eggs, one at a time. The dough should be stiff enough to hold its shape.

Pipe 10cm long tubes leaving a space of 5cm between each tube.
Turn down the oven to 180C. And bake for 15 minutes. Then, to let the steam out, maintain your oven's door open with a wooden spoon and bake for a further 8 minutes.
Remove to a cooling rack.

For the creme patissiere
500ml milk
20g butter
2 vanilla pods
100g caster sugar
40g cornflour
40g flour (preferably tipo 00)
4 egg yolks

In a large pan, put the milk, butter, vanilla seeds, split vanilla pods and half of the sugar. Bring to the boil.
In a large bowl, sieve the flours and beat in the egg yolks. Add the sugar and whisk until light-yellow.
Remove the vanilla pods from the pan and pour a laddle of milk over the eggy mixture. Whisk well and put back into the pan.
On a medium heat, bring this mixture to the boil while stirring constantly.
When thick, remove from the heat and put the creme patissiere into a bowl. Allow to cool and keep in the frigde until ready.

Now you can fill the eclairs with the creme patissiere and top them with a simple icing made of icing sugar and water.

Labels: bites of sweetness, pierre hermé, recipe inside

sweet link | posted by *fanny* at 10:29

13 sweets:

Anonymous said something sweet:: une vraie r�ussite, les choux, la d�co et surtout la photo.; 28 March, 2006 12:27
Anonymous said something sweet:: WondeRful ! La photo est une merveile; 28 March, 2006 12:39
Anonymous said something sweet:: Ouah je ne mets pas de glacage normalement mais le tien est vraiment tres beau; 28 March, 2006 13:13
Anonymous said something sweet:: La photo est magnifique !; 28 March, 2006 17:09
Anonymous said something sweet:: Anne - merci beaucoup, moi qui trouvait la photo moche, je suis aux anges!

Papilles - merci aussi (et de tout coeur)

Texmex - merci (mais je sais dire que ca aujourd'hui). Mais c'est vrai que meme sans glacage, c'est delicieux.

Spacekate - encore merci. Ca me fait tres tres tres plaisir!

xoxo
Fanny; 28 March, 2006 19:31
Anonymous said something sweet:: Beautiful and delicious! :-); 28 March, 2006 20:09
Anonymous said something sweet:: trop joli!
= so nice!!!!; 28 March, 2006 20:45
Anonymous said something sweet:: mais damned, elle parle fran�ais la dame!

alors, bravo, c'est vraiment tr�s bien pr�sent�; 28 March, 2006 20:46
Anonymous said something sweet:: Ils ont l'air delicieux tes choux! Miam miam!; 29 March, 2006 00:19
Anonymous said something sweet:: You did a beautiful job with this Fanny. Looks delicious!; 30 March, 2006 04:06
Amanda and Debbie said something sweet:: This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.; 04 April, 2006 08:39
Amanda and Debbie said something sweet:: We have also had trouble with choux pastry. Will have to give this method a try. Thanks!; 04 April, 2006 08:43
Anonymous said something sweet:: he he, tu as oublie la farine dans ton bon d'economat pour la recette de la pate a choux...

tres cool ton blog...; 04 June, 2006 13:00