I'm no stranger to choux pastry, but I admit that I was a little shocked when I first saw the challenge recipes. C'mon.. homemade chocolate sauce to make the chocolate glaze?! It seemed so unnecessarily complicated. Since I didn't have any free weekends this month, I made the eclairs over the course of a few evenings.
Day One: I adapted the chocolate pastry cream recipe to make vanilla cream and coffee cream. Note to self: Next time, add instant coffee directly to cream instead of first dissolving in a few Tbs of water. That extra bit of liquid made my coffee cream a little too runny to put in the eclairs.
Day Two: I tried to pipe the dough into a cute shape. It sort of worked...
Day Three: Chop chocolate (a labor of love),
prepare chocolate glaze, and assemble eclairs! Even though this recipe was time-consuming, it was totally worth it. To watch the chocolate sauce bring the somewhat unsightly looking chocolate mush come together into an absolutely decadent chocolate glaze was little short of magic. ;)
Plus, they look so cute when they're done! I ended up with a few dozen because I made them half the size of normal eclairs (I couldn't help myself. I heart mini-desserts.) I gave most of them away to friends and neighbors, and got rave reviews all around. Great recipe. I would definitely make them again.
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