Chocolate Eclairs: the August Daring Bakers challenge-

When I saw this months challenge was Pierre Heremes chocolate eclairs I became deeply excited.  I was lucky enough to visit his bakery in Paris just 3 short months ago.  I am so deeply enamoured with Monsiour Herme I have contemplated teaching myself ‘cookbook French’ so I can use his French language only cookbooks!

Anyway, this was a relatively quick challenge to complete (aside from the fact I have up until mid August been without a functioning oven.  The saga of my defective oven went on far, far too long.  Fingers crossed I have no more problems.

The choux pastry went together really well.  I got my Kitchenaid a year ago and it is fantastic.  I so didn’t want to beat the eggs in with a whisk!

I wanted to mess around with the flavors a bit so I divided the custard just before the adding chocolate and butter stage into 3 portions and made one chocolate (as per the recipe) and coffee (really bold amounts of espresso powder so the coffee flavor came through) and vanilla (using generous amounts of vanilla bean paste).

I made the glaze as per the recipe (which sneakily had you make a chocolate sauce as well).  My glaze never really got firm in the warm weather here, but it was lovely.

My piping is getting better, but I still have a long way to go!  I made my eclairs about 5-6cm long so my testers could try all 3 flavors and pick their favorite.

The chocolate and coffee were equal favorites and then one of my guests mentioned how she adored caramel.  I had some left over from another baking project so I ran a drizzle down the centre of the vanilla custard eclairs and that was the hands down pack everything else away fav!  No pictures as proof.  My shutter lag didn’t allow for the speed those babies moved from the plate to the mouth.

Now go and check the Daring Bakers blogroll to see what other fab creations the other bakers came up with.

TWD- Chocolate Banded Ice Cream Torte

For this weeks Tuesday’s With Dorie, Amy of Food, Family and Fun chose: Chocolate-Banded Ice Cream Torte on pages 288-289 of Baking, From My Home To Yours by Dorie Greenspan.

I was full of good intentions to make my own ice cream (tres keen on Dorie’s burnt sugar recipe). However, I realised that I was in increasing danger of having a post that was entitled “good intentions” rather than having completed the challenge! That said I was keen on the caramel thing so I went to my go to recipe from Sherry Yard for her caramel sauce.

No one in my household is immuno-suppressed so I didn’t worry about the raw eggs in the truffle mixture. I have never seen pasturised egg products in Darwin, so I just washed the eggs first and didn’t think about it further.

What I do want to share is my recent discovery about using a stick mixer in making ganache. It emulsifies the cream or butter and chocolate together beautifully. It works especially well with white chocolate ganache. I think if I had made this discovery a few months ago my Daring Bakers Opera Cake would have been so much more handsome! Check out the discussion board at Planet Cake for some great baking information. (Thanks Steph for writing about this amazing place. I am currently in high level negotiations with good husband about going to Sydney for a week to take their intensive class).

I made a half batch and used 2 very petite 4 inch spring form tins. In that size it was a bit tricky to smooth out the layers. Also, ice cream melts in nano seconds here. I mixed in some caramel sauce for a ripple effect. I also found a use for some leftover praline powder as a garnish on top. This is a lovely desert for something special. However, the most appreciative in the house were in fact the under 5 set. At least my boys have good taste!

Now go check out the TWD blogroll for some other mouthwatering reading…

TWD- Granola Grabbers

For this weeks Tuesdays with Dorie Bake, Michelle of Bad Girl Baking chose: Granola Grabbers on page 82 of Baking From My Home To Yours by Dorie Greenspan.

This is a recipe that really pushes the limit of just how little cookie dough can be used to hold together a whole lot of mix ins. Think of it this way, if it were a dress it would be held together by ‘Hollywood Tape’ and a prayer.

I used home made granola/toasted musli, so mine wasn’t too sweet. I didn’t add extra nuts as my musli has lots of almonds, sesame and sunflower seeds. Being a girl who likes to both follow the rules and play around (yes, I get the contradiction) I split the batter and added some plumped up sultanas (soaked in boiling water for a few minutes) and dark chocolate M & M’s to the respective batters.

Oh, I wish I could say I liked the sultana ones best. But alas, dark choc M & M’s just won hands down.

There is a really interesting texture to these biscuits. The extreme homeliness of the granola is held together by what is on reflection a sable base. All together, very, very nice. Now go check out the TWD blogroll and see what the rest of the group has to say.

TWD- Blueberry Sour Cream Ice Cream

For this weeks Tuesday with Dorie, Dolores of Chronicles in Culinary Curiosity chose: Blueberry Sour Cream Ice Cream on page 434 of Baking from my Home To Yours by Dorie Greenspan.

One advantage of living in the tropics is it is always ice cream weather.

I also had the epinphany of leaving the bulky ice cream canister in the display home/stunt kitchen freezer as my freezer at home is always jam packed.

The recipe was quite simple.  I substituted light sour cream (as it was in the fridge ready to go) the only other variation was a Tablespoon of gin.  It helps keep the ice crystals from forming and can make it easier to scoop straight from the freezer.  It is really important not to add too much alcohol otherwise you get soup!  (Anyone who has stored vodka in the freezer knows the anti-freeze properties of alcohol.

I like the freshness of flavor of this ice cream but I am a fan of the cooked custard style of ice cream.  Even though I used light sour cream and regular cream (35% fat) in the recipe I had a slight residue of cream/fat that took a while to disapate from the roof of my mouth.  Not certain what that was from but perhaps there wasn’t the right balance to emulsify the fats better (such as eggs or larger amounts of sugar).

So the final verdict is lovely flavor profile but not perfect mouth feel.  Lots to contemplate in how to make it better for next time.  Now go check out the TWD blogroll to see what everyone else came up with.

TWD- Black-And-White Banana Loaf

I think I found a way of getting my nephew to eat more fruit.  The chocolate marbling in this turned banana loaf into a lick the plate clean kind of food.  My boys are fruit lovers (even if they don’t finish every piece) but Mitchell has entered a picky phase.  So this is a winner for the little ones.

I was surprised at just how runny this cake batter was.  But because of this I came up with another variation of the marbling technique.  I just put in large tablespoons of batter alternating colours, and then I put the opposite colour on top and continued up (I got 4 layers up).  Then I just needed the slightest nudge of the knife blade to get my marbling done.

 

This cake pleased the little ones and also made the rest of the family happy.  

I do have a confession to make, I am totally in love with Dories Classic Banana Bundt Cake with shards of dark chocolate in it.  This recipe comes close but isn’t my absolute fav use of mushy bananas.