Chicken Farm Baker's Project # 40 : Play me please!!, Pâte à choux, Éclairs Forêt Noire

 It's not easy for me to create anything fancy at this moment, well, there are a lot of bad news on the television, so I'm not in a happy mode -*-.

Anyway, life goes on, we can't stop anything by ourselves, give other people a hand when you can, it's the most important thing that you can do at this moment. My family bought a lot of drinking water, food and some clothes and send them to the people who face (and still facing) with heavy flood, it's the best thing that we who still live a normal life can do. 
So for this month, Chicken Farm Baker's Project # 40 : Play me please!!, Pâte à choux. I felt like I lacked of an energy to make it. Well, like every month I have a lot of idea and a long list. Pâte à choux is very interesting, making it is different from other kinds of the pastry, it's a cooked flour mixture with a lot of egg! I once read that the Pâte à choux will be very good if you can add as many egg as you could into it. So you can see that when making the pastry, we need to stir the flour mixture over the heat to dry it and when the batter become dry, it can accept a lot of egg too.
Baking it is quite tricky too, the key is to make it puff up as much as it can and dry it until it holds its shape. I choose to use high heat at first part of baking and reduce the heat to dry it, but you can go on with lower heat (180°C) and bake longer than me. Remember that don't open the oven door until you're sure that the choux start to hold its shape or your choux pastry will collapse in front of your eyes.
  Actually I really think about making the Choux Pastry Mille feuille, by using the Pâte à choux instead of puff pastry but I really can't concentrate. My aunt came to stay with me because her house has a fat chance to be under the water too, so she watches the news on the TV all the time and and it makes me concern too.  

So finally, I choose to make something easier "Éclairs Forêt Noire", it's a simple éclair with a new filling idea and lovely decoration. It's a mixture of  Pâte à choux, Crémeux au chocolat, cherries, Crème chantilly, and some chocolate decoration. 
Because I made this for my niece too, so I skip the kirsh, but you can add it if you like, by mix 10ml of it into the Crémeux au chocolat after mix in the chopped chocolate. 
If you love chocolate and like black forest cake, this éclair will be a great idea to try ^^, and I hope that you will love it too.

Éclairs Forêt Noire

Makes about 15 pieces 

 Pâte à choux
160ml ................................. Water
3g ........................................ Sugar
70g ...................................... Unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
3g ........................................ Sea salt
15g ...................................... Milk powder
90g ...................................... Bread flour (or all purpose flour)
3 ........................................... Eggs (about 160g)
Egg wash
1 ............................................ Egg mix with 1tbsp of water 
Crémeux au chocolat
110g ..................................... Dark chocolate (70%), chopped
150ml .................................. Milk
160g ..................................... Whipping cream
3 ............................................ Egg yolks
15g ........................................ Sugar
½ tsp .................................... Vanilla paste
Filling
200g ..................................... Dark cherries in heavy syrup, drained and cut into small pieces
Crème chantilly
190g ...................................... Whipping cream
10g ........................................ Icing sugar
Decoration
500g ..................................... Dark chocolate, tempered and cut into 13x3 cm pieces
............................................... Chocolate curls



Preheat the oven to 200°C
Sift the flour and set aside.
Line the sheet pan with baking paper.

 Bring water, butter, salt and sugar to a boil. Add the milk powder and bring back to boil.
Remove from heat, add flour all at once, blend well, stir vigorously with a wooden spoon until mixture no longer sticks to pan and forms into a ball. Reduce heat to low and return pan to stove, beating for 3-4 minute Remove from heat. Whisk in eggs one at a time (a little at a time, you might not need all of them).

When the batter is smooth and glossy, test with your finger, you will be able to stretch it.
Fill a pastry bag with the pastry and, using a 2.5cm star nozzle, squeeze the pastry to make 12.5x 2.5 cm éclairs on to the prepared baking sheets allowing space for them to rise separately.
Brush with egg wash.

Bake for 20minutes  then lower the heat to 180°C and bake for another 15-20 minutes or light and holds its shape.


 Make Crémeux au chocolat:

Whisk the egg yolks, sugar and vanilla paste together in a small saucepan, boil the milk and cream, then slowly whisk it into the egg yolk mixture.
Put the saucepan over low heat, stir all the time and heat until 82°C.
Take the pan off the heat and stir in the chocolate, stir until melt.
Place some Clingfilm over the surface and chill until required (the Clingfilm will prevent a skin from forming)


Fill the éclairs:

Use a 8 mm nozzle to cut small holes under the éclairs.
Push the cherries into the holes, about 6-8 small pieces per 1 éclair.
Filled with Crémeux au chocolat and chill in refrigerate.


Decorate:
Make Crème chantilly by whipping the whipping cream with icing sugar.
Pipe small amount of the Crème chantilly over the top of the éclair and place 1 piece of the chocolate on top of it.
Pipe the Crème chantilly over the chocolate and place another piece of chocolate on top.
Dot a small amount of Crémeux au chocolat on the chocolate and decorate with chocolate curls.

Chicken Farm Baker's Project # 40 : Play me please!!, 

Pâte à choux, Éclairs Forêt Noire