Not my pic
Hiya! Happy New Year and all that. I hope your various gifts and special times were spectacular. Or for those of you who don't hold with the gift giving, Heh heh heh Lame.
This year Santa brought us a new faucet for our bathroom and Hanukah Harry brought me a blowtorch!! Burning stuff = Deep Soul Satisfaction
Today is a confession day. I have to tell someone, even if indirectly.
I'm that guy. My face burns with shame. I didn't... SIGH, I'm not sure I can do this. Ok, here goes: I didn't realize I had the green arrow and I wasted it for everyone behind me. During rush hour!! I even flipped off the beepers in back of me with an indignant yell of "Uh, Hello!?! It's their right of way fucker, CHILL."
My deepest apologies Beepers, really, it was my fault.
What a loser.
Over the holidays I got a bug up my ass telling me to try to make eclairs. It was a loud angry bug and I'm not one to deny its call. You don't want to know the precise planetary alignment which allowed moi to achieve proper eclair shell height and it may never occur again in my lifetime, but here is how I did it this time. I'll follow with another posting for the custard filling/chocolate topping later.
Also called Choux pastry, this batter is started out on the stove top and uses steam to puff up when cooking. Keep in mind, I tried making these bitches 3 times before it came out right.
First, make a sacrifice to the steam fairies. Throw salt, slay your first born, burn a lamb, whatever, the proper ritual in your house Must happen.
Not common Apparatus needed:
1 small oven proof container
1 large ziplock bag OR a pastry bag with 5/8" or 3/4" nozzle thing
parchment paper
pencil
* Not necessary but worked well: 1 wooden spoon. For some reason I found it easiest to mix eggs into four/butter dough with a wooden spoon but you could really use any mixing spoon.
Ingredients
1 stick unsalted butter (4 oz.)
1 cup water
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup sifted flour
4 eggs lightly beaten
Oven Action
Place a small oven proof container filled with water in your oven.
Pre-heat your oven to 415 degrees
Prepare thy Miz (mis en place)
1. cut parchment paper to fit your baking sheet
2. draw 6 " lines with at least 1" space between each one on the parchment, flip paper over and place on baking sheet (you should be able to see the lines)
3. sift flour and measure out 1 cup set this within reach of stove top
4. lightly beat 4 eggs in a bowl set aside
5. prepare large ziplock bag by rolling the top few inches of the bag or prepare piping bag
Stove top action
1. In a saucepan, bring 4 oz (1 stick) of butter, 1/4 tsp salt and 1 cup of water to boil on low-med heat
2. After it is at a boil, remove pan from heat, dump 1 cup of flour into pan and mix thoroughly.
3. Place back onto heat and stir constantly until dough pulls away from side of pan and forms a giant clump in the middle (looks a bit like mashed potatoes)
Counter top action
1. place flour/butter lump into mixing bowl
2. squish around to release heat and mush any blobs of flour that may have not been mixed in properly
3. cool the lump until you can stick your finger in it without burning yourself (I stick the bowl into the freezer for a minute)
4. after cooled slightly, pour 1/4th of the beaten eggs into the mixing bowl and stir like crazy
*Please note this will turn into gross egg slime mini lumps but keep stirring and it will eventually incorporate the eggs
5. repeat step 4. until all eggs are mixed in and your spoon will stand up straight in your now glossy batter
Lay some Piping
1. Spoon all of the batter into your prepared bag (if using ziplock, snip 1 corner to make a 5/8-3/4" opening)
2. Pipe batter onto your drawn lines
3. Repeat as necessary to use all batter (this make take up more than one baking sheet)
Bake 'Em
1. Place sheets into your steamy oven at 415 for 15 minutes
Don't open the door.
2. Turn down oven temp to 350 degrees and bake for another 12 minutes or until golden and shells sound kind of hollow when you tap them
3. Turn off oven
4. Pull out shells, poke a hole in them so the steam will escape place shells back into oven for 5 minutes
5. Cool on a rack before filling.
You can either slice shells in half lengthwise and fill them like a sandwich or jam a pastry nozzle into one and fill them that way.
Another option is to pipe the batter into mounds for profiteroles or cream puffs.
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