I spent most of today playing candy crush... And when I finally got my fill (as in I couldn't continue because I needed friends to send me train tickets to move on)..I finally peeled myself out of bed. Vince and I spent all day yesterday cleaning and organizing the house so today I decided I wanted to break in my new cook book: "Laduree Sucre". For those that don't know Laduree is a French bakery that makes luxury cakes and pastries. They are "one of the best known Macaron makers in the world". Visit the Laduree site for more information on the bakery. One day I will visit their shop in France--but until then I will just have to attempt to make their pastries on my own....and pray I don't f*** em up too bad.
Today I decided I needed to attempt to make eclairs again, since the last batch ended in utter failure. This time I wanted to make vanilla eclairs. To make the vanilla eclairs i needed to make a pate a choux and some pastry cream. This eclair also called for a crisp sweet pastry top: a mixture of butter, sugar, and flour--i actually used vanilla sugar.
Today I decided I needed to attempt to make eclairs again, since the last batch ended in utter failure. This time I wanted to make vanilla eclairs. To make the vanilla eclairs i needed to make a pate a choux and some pastry cream. This eclair also called for a crisp sweet pastry top: a mixture of butter, sugar, and flour--i actually used vanilla sugar.
The part that took the longest was the crisp sweet pastry top. The book said mix ingredients together until "homogenous". Now I know what dough looks like, but what my mixture looked like was not what i was picturing...I was really nervous I may have done something wrong....
I wasn't sure but the recipe says refrigerate dough for an hour, so I grabbed the crumbles and balled it together in saran wrap and let it rest in the fridge. While I waited for the dough I started making the pastry cream and the pate a choux.
After an hour went by I was so thrilled to see my dough turned into dough. For the first time I got to use my rolling pin (before that I would just take a wine bottle and wrap it with foil and use it as a rolling pin). I had to roll the dough into a sheet and then wait another hour while it rested back in the fridge.
Trust me this sounds easy, but let me tell you I was in the kitchen for 5 hours mixing all of the ingredients and making the various elements for the eclairs. There were times where I got tired and I had to rely on Vince to whisk away to give my arms a break. Thank You God, for giving me a man with arm muscles ;)
When it was finally time for baking I was getting that nervous churning in my tummy (will it work this time? will it deflate again?) and I was feeling very conflicted. Again my new oven was causing me problems. This time I knew to use the CONVECT setting, the problem: the recipe says after 8-10 minutes to stick a wooden spoon in the oven to release steam. I wasn't sure if with my oven I would need to do that to. So i waited 10 minutes. Put a spoon in then decided the wooden spoon was too big, and switched it out for chopsticks. After 5 minutes left I got really nervous and removed the chopstick all together and let the over door shut all the way...then a minute left put the chopstick back in--Like i said was feeling really conflicted!
Overall I think the vanilla eclairs were a success, unfortunately they were slightly overcooked and the pastries were a bit crunchy. I am hoping tomorrow they will be softer after the pastry cream sits in there overnight. Either way it turned out WAAAAY better than my last attempt. At least these one did not deflate.
I think tomorrow I will try to make cream puffs since I still have more filling. As this will also give me a chance to try to get the bake time and "the oven door open OR oven door closed" situation correct.
After an hour went by I was so thrilled to see my dough turned into dough. For the first time I got to use my rolling pin (before that I would just take a wine bottle and wrap it with foil and use it as a rolling pin). I had to roll the dough into a sheet and then wait another hour while it rested back in the fridge.
Trust me this sounds easy, but let me tell you I was in the kitchen for 5 hours mixing all of the ingredients and making the various elements for the eclairs. There were times where I got tired and I had to rely on Vince to whisk away to give my arms a break. Thank You God, for giving me a man with arm muscles ;)
When it was finally time for baking I was getting that nervous churning in my tummy (will it work this time? will it deflate again?) and I was feeling very conflicted. Again my new oven was causing me problems. This time I knew to use the CONVECT setting, the problem: the recipe says after 8-10 minutes to stick a wooden spoon in the oven to release steam. I wasn't sure if with my oven I would need to do that to. So i waited 10 minutes. Put a spoon in then decided the wooden spoon was too big, and switched it out for chopsticks. After 5 minutes left I got really nervous and removed the chopstick all together and let the over door shut all the way...then a minute left put the chopstick back in--Like i said was feeling really conflicted!
Overall I think the vanilla eclairs were a success, unfortunately they were slightly overcooked and the pastries were a bit crunchy. I am hoping tomorrow they will be softer after the pastry cream sits in there overnight. Either way it turned out WAAAAY better than my last attempt. At least these one did not deflate.
I think tomorrow I will try to make cream puffs since I still have more filling. As this will also give me a chance to try to get the bake time and "the oven door open OR oven door closed" situation correct.