Chocolate Eclairs

Just back from redang island... a wonderful holiday with all my good friends. n we still can have this chocolate eclairs there... One of my friends really want this... so i made the pastry shoes in advance... bake n keep in sealing bag. Also make the chocolate melt in advance... coz i know its hard to double boil chocolate there using mini portable camping stove. I made the custard there... bring all the ingredients for custard from here coz as i know no kedai runcit kat sana.

After tired of swimming and snorkeling... we had this as our dessert after dinner meal provided by chalet managment.


its fun having cold chocolate ecliars there. Here is the real recipe.... bukan for travelers resepi... hehehhe


Ingredients :

For puff pastry :

• 1 cup of flour
• 1 cup of water
• 1/2 cup of butter - dice
• 4 eggs
• 1 tbsp sugar
• pinch of salt

For custard filling :

• 1 1/2 cups of milk (fresh milk)
• 2 tbsp unsalted butter
  
• 2 tbsp full cornstarch
  
• 5 tbsp sugar - if don't like sweet, reduce to 4 tbsp
• 1 egg
  
• 2 egg yolk
• pinch of salt
• 2 tsp vanilla extract

For melt chocolate :

• 1 cup semi sweet chocolate
• 1/4 cup butter

or

• 1 cup of semisweet chocolate
• 1/2 cup of heavy cream
• 1 tbsp light corn syrup (optional)
  

Method :

Preheat oven at 180 C


Bring to boil water, salt, sugar and butter over medium heat.


Add in flour. Stir to combine. keep stirring until the dough will start come together. turn the heat down to low.


As you continue stirring, you should be able to easily form a ball out of the dough. Continue stirring for few more minutes.


Put the dough into a bowl and beat with mixer on low speed. let the dough cools down. when u don't see any steam and the bottom of the bowl just feels slightly warm, then proceed to the next step.


Add in eggs one at a time. mixwell before add another egg. increase the mixer speed as the dough will get thicker and harder to mix. scrape the sides of the bowl n mix well again.


the dough will be like this.


put the dough into a disposable piping bag. (any plastic bag also can as long as can stand with pressure). cut off the tip - about 1 cm.

place a parchment paper on a baking sheet. squirt small amount about 3 inchs long (logs) and the width about the finger size. space them apart. wet your finger and smooth out the logs as best as u can.

bake in preheat oven for 18 - 25 minutes or until the eclairs shells turn to golden brown.

place the baked eclairs shell on wire rack n let it cool.


For Custard Filling:

Beat egg and egg yolks and cornstarch until smooth. put aside.

Pour milk in a pot and heat over medium heat. Add in sugar and salt. stir until all sugar dissolve.Low the heat. once the milk come up to slow simmer, slowly pour 1/4 of milk into the egg/constarch mix while vigorously whisking to avoid scrambling the eggs.

Pour back the mixture from the bowl into pot, over medium-low heat. Keep whisking for 5-8 minutes non-stop.

its will thicken up and boil. when it looks as though it is pulling away from the pot, turn off the heat.

Add in butter and vanilla extract. mix well (sieve before adding butter and vanilla if u wish to get smoother texture of custard)

refrigerated for 2 hours .


For Melt Chocolate:

Double boil the chocolate until melt. add the rest ingredients and mix until all combine.


To Assemble :


Pipe in custard into pastry shell. and dip half into chocolate melt.





And now you can enjoy it or chill for a while before eating.....