Sasha's Kitchen: Eclairs

As I have said in some recent posts, I've been trying out a new French recipe each week.  Before moving on to delve deep into the world of macarons, I decided to try making eclairs, once the darling of the French patisserie, before macarons came on the scene. The key to making delicious eclairs in making pate choux, the basis of the French cream puff, piping out the pate choux, and allowing it to puff up into eclairs in the oven.  Then, the pastries are filled with homemade pastry cream and glazed in a chocolate ganache glaze.  These only stay good for about a day, and are really best if you eat them right away, so I suggest making them for a party, perhaps for a French brunch.  I was really happy with how these came out - they were nice and puffy and filled up easily with the pastry cream.

Eclairs (recipe from Martha Stewart)
Pate Choux
1 stick of butter, cut into pieces
1 tsp sugar
1 1/4 cup flour
four large eggs

Pastry Cream
six egg yolks
1 large egg
3/4 cup plus 2 T sugar
3 T cornstarch
3 T flour
3 cups milk
3 T unsalted butter
2 tsp vanilla extract

Glaze
1/2 cup heavy cream
4 oz semisweet chocolate chips

First, to make the pate choux, bring butter, sugar, salt and one cup of water to boil in a medium saucepan.  Remove from heat and quickly stir in the flour.  Continue stirring constantly over medium high heat until mixture pulls away from the sides and a thin film forms on the bottom, about three minutes. Transfer to the bowl of a stand mixer, fitted with the paddle attachment.  Mix on low speed for a minute, then turn to high speed and add the whole eggs, one at a time.  Beat on high until soft peaks form when you touch with the tip of your finger

Preheat the oven to 425.  Line two baking sheets with parchment paper or use silpats.  Fill a pastry bag with a 1 inch tip and pipe oblong shapes onto the baking sheets at 2 inch intervals.  Run a wet fork along the top of each to ensure even rising.

Cover one sheet with oiled plastic wrap and put in the fridge, until the first sheet is done.  Bake 10 minutes at 425, then reduce to 350 and bake another 25 minutes.  Turn off oven and prop door with a spoon and allow to cool in the oven for ten minutes.  Transfer to a wire rack to cool and bake the second sheet the same way.

The pastry cream can be made ahead of time.  Prepare an ice bath.  In a medium bowl, combine the yolks and 2 tablespoons of sugar.  Whisk in the cornstarch and flour and whisk until smooth.  Set aside.  In a medium saucepan, combine the milk and remaining sugar.  Stir over medium heat until milk begins to steam.  Then. whisk in the egg mixture, stir until smooth and return to the heat.  Bring the mixture to a boil and stir constantly to prevent scorching until it forms a thick custard.  Strain and place over icebath.  Chill.

Fill the eclairs with the pastry cream using a pastry tip.  To make the glaze, heat the cream in a saucepan, and pour the hot cream over the chocolate.  Let stand until melted and whisk until smooth.  Dip each eclair in the chocolate cream.  Allow glaze to set.

Sasha's Kitchen: Eclairs

Sasha's Kitchen: Blueberry Cream Pie

My initial efforts here were to prepare a blueberry tart, even though blueberries are not in season in the dead of winter. As you may have realized, I love colorful foods and love almost all fruits and vegetables, so when I saw that I could buy what appeared to be good blueberries, I couldn't resist the urge, even though they were twice as expensive as they would be on a balmy July day.  If you are looking for my blueberry pie recipe, with its decorative lattice, click here.

In addition, I remembered when I was ready to prepare the blueberry tart, that I did not yet have a tart pan (something every good baker should have, and that I plan to rectify before summer berry tart season is upon us). Thus, I adapted the original Martha Stewart recipe from the Everyday Food website for a blueberry cream pie. It may look like a pie, rather than a tart, but it was every bit as delicious, judging from how quickly it has disappeared from my refrigerator.

Pie/Tart Crust

1 1/4 cups flour

1 1/2 T sugar

1 stick unsalted butter

1 large egg yolk

1/8 cup ice water (you can add a tad bit more if you have trouble getting the dough to stick)

Combine the flour and sugar in the artisan mixer, and add butter until the mixture resembles a meal.  Beat in the eggs and ice water, until the mixture forms a dough.

Roll out the dough into a pie crust and fit into a pie pan (or a tart dish).  Refridgerate until chilled for 30 minutes.  Then, bake the shell alone at 375 for about 40 minutes, until lightly browned, using pie weights.

To prepare the filling, you will be making a conventional pastry cream, and will need the following:

Filling for Blueberry Cream Pie

2 pints of blueberries  (approximate - you may use slightly less)

1 cup milk

1/2 a vanilla bean, split

5 T, plus 1 tsp sugar

3 large egg yolks

1 T cornstarch

1 T flour

1 T butter

1/2 cup heavy cream

several T quince jam

Place the milk, vanilla bean (cut lengthwise) and 4 T of sugar in a medium saucepan over high heat and cook until almost boiling.  In a separate bowl, whisk the egg yolks, 1 T sugar and cornstarch together.  The resulting mixture will be very thick.  Remove and discard the vanilla bean, and slowly pour the milk mixture into the egg mixture, whisking the entire time.  Do this last step over medium high heat, until it thickens substantially for about 1-2 minutes.  Don't do it too long, or it will dry out and burn.

Next, beat the heavy cream with 1 tsp of sugar, using the whisk attachment of your mixer for several minutes, until the mixture has changed form and resembles whipped cream.  Fold this into the egg/milk mixture.

Add the thick, creamy mixture to your pie shell and top with the blueberries.  Glaze with some melted quince jam, using a pastry brush.  The pie (or tart) should be ready to eat, although you can chill it first, if you prefer.  Note that I do not prepare a lattice for this type of blueberry cream pie, like I do with my more conventional blueberry pie (pictured below). 

If you would like to enjoy the pie with a glass of wine, I would recommend doing so with a late harvest risling, or perhaps a Canadian ice wine.

Perhaps the fact that I prepared this recipe at all, in January, shows how much I miss summer fruits in the winter, and how the cold weather has been getting to me over the last couple of weeks.  Does this go against my acclaimed farm to table approach? Not really - because the recipe is certainly meant to be prepared in June or July, using fresh farmers market blueberries. 

Sasha's Kitchen: Blueberry Cream Pie