Eclairs

Today we made pate a choux - a pastry dough used in pastries like eclairs, profiteroles, cream puffs, popovers, and beignets. The dough is cooked twice - once over the stove and then once in an oven to puff it up and then dry it out, so it becomes hollow inside (or deep fried, in the case of beignets).

Today we made eclairs. We made the dough, piped it onto a sheet pan, cooked it in the oven, then filled it with three different flavors of lightened pastry cream: vanilla, chocolate, and coffee. We dipped the tops in vanilla, coffee, and chocolate icings to identify the flavor of the cream inside.

Piping and scoring the dough before it goes in the oven is tricky. It has to be done properly or the dough will burst on the top, creating fissures or holes that can later leak the filling and make it hard to properly frost. It will definitely take me more practice to perfect!