Book 8 : Merle's Kitchen - Merle Parrish

Choux pastry and I have a history.  Its not an exciting history, in any way, shape or form, but it is a history.  The story begins in high school, I made my first ever batch of choux pastry in home ec. and it rocked!  Seriously it was a damn good choux pastry (and by extension chocolate eclair) it was crisp and light, and best of all it didn't need the doughy middle scraped out with a spoon.  It was awesome and considering that our teachers had told us it was hard to make, I was feeling pretty cocky. It went down hill from there.  After bragging about being the worlds best choux pastry cook, I went home to once again astound the world with my choux pastry making prowess... it didn't work!  And so choux pastry and I have been apart ever since.  What...?  I told you it wasn't a exciting story!  What you need to understand about me (if you don't already) is that I am a tad competitive.  When I say tad, I mean extremely, terrifyingly, horribly competitive!  I'm also a slight control freak with mild anger issues.  To sum it up, if I can't win, I don't play.  My grade six sports teacher kindly took me aside after netball once and gently explained to me that maybe playing netball wasn't for me!  (then told me, much less gently, that competitive sport was something I should sit out in future!.. pfft) He was quiet obviously sexist and didn't like short people with glasses, hopefully he has worked through his issues!  Unlike me, my way of dealing with my issues is to avoid them all together.  Its been roughly 18 years and I have managed to avoid making Choux pastry (not as dramatic or as hard as I'm trying to make it sound!), until now......... :)

Terrible photo!

Recipe - Chocolate Eclairs

1tbsp butter
1 cup Water
1 cup SR flour
4 eggs, lightly beaten
150ml cream, whipped

Chocolate Icing
1 1/2 cups icing sugar
1 tbsp cocoa powder
1 tsp melted butter
1/2 tsp vanilla essence
boiling water

Preheat the oven to 180c.  Line two baking trays with non-stick baking paper.
Combine the butter and water in a large saucepan, and heat until the butter melts and the comes to the boil.  Sift the flour into the pan, and stir with a wooden spoon over the heat for about 1 minute, until the mixture comes away from the sides of the pan in a lump.

Transfer the mixture to a bowl and cool slightly, stirring to release the heat.  Add the eggs a little bit at a time, beating well with electric beaters between each addition, until the mixture is very thick and glossy

Place the mixture into a piping bag fitted with a plain 1.5cm nozzle.  Pipe into 8cm lengths, leaving room for rising and spreading.  Bake for 20-25 minutes, until puffed and golden brown.  Transfer to a wire rack to cool.

Split the eclairs lengthways, and fill with whipped cream.

For the icing, sift the dry ingredients together, then mix in the butter, vanilla and enough boiling water to make a smooth paste.  Spread over the top of the eclairs and leave to set.

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I really like this cookbook, Merle is gorgeous.  The book has a lovely introduction and every recipe has a page for the recipe and a page for a photo.  Also most of the recipes have a little explanation of why they have been included and/or the history of the recipe.  Its a great book, I brought it because I've always wanted to make nice scones and I thought Merle could help.  Sadly she hasn't, I still can't cook scones (well I can, but a better description for them would be hard, lumpy flour rocks!)  but that's not Merle's fault, I'm pretty sure it's a genetic abnormality.  But there are plenty of great recipes in here, that even I with my scone and choux pastry issues can make :)

The chocolate eclairs themselves are simple to make, I did try to get tricky and make mini ones.  I wouldn't do that again, they were fiddly and a pain in the arse to ice...  BUT, the pastry was good (not brilliant, but good), and the cream and icing make them delicious!  All in all, I think choux and I have come to a agreement, I won't make it too often and it won't make me look too stupid!  Now I better finish off those eclairs because I would hate for the kids to make themselves sick ..... I'm taking one for the team :)

Thanks
Kate
xx

Oh by the way, if you like to cheat like I do, use disposable piping bags!  I use them for everything and you just chuck them out afterwards...
Also Myer have 40% off cookbooks this week (target has 20% for this weekend only!), don't these places know I have a problem?  So to teach them a lesson, I only purchased two new cookbooks.... What?  I'd normally buy 5 or 6.....  :)