Choux Pastry - Chocolate Eclairs

I think we've firmly established that I love my pastry, love it. So I'm trying to push myself to make more and make it perfect. I'm really confident in my puff pastry but not so much choux pastry....I only made it once and I think I was about 15...so it doesn't count...all I remember is that there was some burnt cream involved, don't ask.

I found these could have been a bit sweeter for my liking, so a light dusting of icing sugar could just do the trick I think, I wouldn't recommend adding sugar to the mix on your first go as it can completely change how the mix comes out.
Choux pastry wasn't as scary as I imagined so it's definitely worth a bash!

So lets get to it.

Eclairs Recipe

• 65g plain flour
• pinch of salt
• 150ml water
• 50g butter
• 2 eggs, well beaten
• 300ml double cream
• 150g plain chocolate

Method

1. Sift the salt and the flour.
2. Place the water and the butter in a saucepan, heat gently until the butter melts then bring to a brisk boil.
3. Remove from the heat and til in all of the sifted flour and salt.
4. Stir briskly and firmly until the mixture form a soft ball and leaves the sides of the pan clean.
5. Remove from heath again and cool slightly, ass the egg mixture until it is smooth, shiny and firm enough to stand in soft peaks when lifted with a spoon.
6. Use straight away or if you have to keep it then leave in saucepan and cover with a lid so it doesn't dry out.
7. Fill a piping bag that has a 1cm round nozzle with the pastry and pipe 4inch/10cm sausages on a greased baking sheet. 
8. Bake for ten minutes at 200 degrees (180 fan), then reduce to 180 (160 fan) and bake for a further 20-25 minutes.
9. Take out eclairs, they used be lovely and golden,make a slit in each eclair and bake for a further five minutes to help dry out the middle a little.
10. Leave these to cool completely.
11. Melt the chocolate in a bowl, over a saucepan of gently boiling water.
12. Cut the slits again to ensure enough room for cream.
13. Whip the cream until light and fully whipped (odd sentence I know).
14. Spread the chocolate onto top of eclairs.
15. Chilld in the fridge until ready to eat.
16. Nom!
17. Pipe in the

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Norwegian Kringle (A Sweet Pastry)

Something I have been baking a lot of recently is something called Kringle. It's a Norwegian pastry made from sweet yeast dough and is AMAZING! You can add a lot of different fillings too to make it just how you like. I recently auditioned for The Great British Bake Off and the judges, Paul Hollywood and Mary Berry really liked this. It is traditionally made into a pretzel or ring shape and looks beautiful when latticed for a bit of detail. It take a bit of practice but when you have it mastered you can do it with your eyes shut.

The one I have been making has what they call a 'macroonfyll' which is made up of cream, egg and hazlenuts.


Ingredients:

1 Packet of dried yeast or 50g fresh
2 eggs
pinch of saffron or tumeric for colour
150g butter - plus extra for decorating and greasing
500ml milk
1/2 tsp salt
1 tbsp honey
100ml sugar (yes ml, not grams, Norwegian measurements)
2 tsp ground cardamom, hard to find, so if you really want it you'll have to grind it from pods by hand
880g of flour - some recipes use less but the it ends up like goo.....
150g toasted hazelnuts, chopped.
100ml double cream
100g of your favourite chocolate, grated

Make up some glace icing at the end

Mix all of the dry ingredients  in a bowl. Warm up the milk and honey to a yeast friendly temperature and then add the yeast and mix until fairly smooth, and in a separate bowl melt the butter. Add the butter to the dry ingredients and then mix. Add the eggs to the milky honey mixture and then add this mixture to the flour and butter one. Mix until combined, cover and leave somewhere, preferably warm to rise for 30 - 60 minutes.

Mix the hazelnuts with the icing sugar and cream, whip until thick and it starts to stiffen. Leave in fridge until needed.

Tip the dough out onto a flour surface an knead until workable and elastic without being firm. Roll the pastry out into a long oblong. Know take some butter, make sure it is very soft, then spread it all the way along the dough. Make cuts down the side of the dough on both sides, but make one side half a cut above the other so it is slightly offset.  Sprinkle the chocolate along the dough down the middle and spread the cream and hazelnut mixture in the middle down the dough also.  Now take the cut finger of dough and make them meet in the middle and pinch them together so it is latticed all of the way down. Folding the ends in at the top and bottom. Shape into your chosen shape. Cover and leave to rise for another 30 min.

Paul Hollywood gave me some good advice here, and that was to a) use a chocolate that you love eating, opposed to cooking chocolate as it can taste a a bit candy like. And to not be afraid to let it go very golden in the oven.

Put little dabs of butter along the latticed parts and smother in sugar and hazelnuts. Cook in a preheated oven at 225 degrees, 215 if its a fan oven, for 20 minutes until it has a good golden colour.

When cool drizzle over a gorgeous amount of icing sugar and devour, nom! Pin It Now!

Fresh Yeast!

Where can I get fresh yeast in the UK I hear you ask? You can get it every easily abroad, but here it is not so simple let me tell you. I've tried most shops and places, until I did a little googleing and discovered that you can actually get it right from Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury's etc, but you wont find it on their shelves, you'll have to go direct to their own in-store bakery. I never even thought about it before but it is so obvious that of course you can get it from there! Most recipes need 50g of fresh yeast for a serving of dried yeast, and I get mine from Tesco for 30p per 100g, bargain! And what is great is that is freezes too so don't worry that you'll waste half if you don't need it all. Fresh yeast is crazy active, amazingly more so than dried, so don't freak out when it nealry overflows the bowl, it's amazing! Pin It Now!