Eclairs

In my last blog I touched on our visit to L'Eclair de Genie by Christophe Adam. The eclairs were all the same length and beautifully decorated and displayed in rows. Our favourite was the raspberry and passion fruit eclair.

During our visit there Mr T&T bought me Christophe Adams book, "Eclairs". Alas, the book is in French. Did that discourage me? No, I love the book, it has beautiful photographs and my little French dictionary does come in handy.

Reading a ( alright, looking at the pictures ) French patisserie magazine a few years ago, I came across a picture of an eclair. The decoration on top of the eclair were of Mona Lisa's eyes, really beautiful. It was one of Christophe Adams creations, at the time he was the pastry chef at Fauchon in Paris.

In my previous blog, the choux pastry recipe that I used for the profiteroles was made with water. For this recipe I used the recipe from "Eclair" by Christophe Adam. I made a few batches, as I was not familiar with this recipe. My observation was that, when made with milk, it browns quicker than the recipe made with water. The fan bake setting on my oven gave me a better result than the bake setting. My oven is small, so you need to take that in consideration when baking.

The method for choux pastry is the same as the last blog. The nozzle I used is what is recommended in Christophe Adams book.( I have a feeling it is a Matfer product.)

The eclairs are piped 15 cm long or 7.5 inches.

The eclairs were baked at 170 deg Celcius ( 338 deg. Fahrenheit ) for 35 minutes

Once cooled, use a small nozzle to make three holes. Fill your eclair with the filling of your choice.

Dip into your coating. Gently remove the excess coating using palate knife, or against the edge of your pot or bowl.

Filling: Creme patissiere with fresh raspberries.

Coating: Fondant with pink food coloring.

Garnish: Fresh raspberries and a light dusting of icing sugar.

Filling: Creme Patissiere with orange liquor.

Coating: Fondant with a little orange juice

Garnish: Candied orange peel.

Filling: Creme Patissiere with dark chocolate.

Coating: Fondant with chocolate

As with anything, practice makes perfect. There are so many great flavour combinations out there. Hopefully this inspires you to create your own beautiful eclairs.