eclairs!

I love eclairs. Year ago I made them completely from scratch and practically ate all of them by myself (hence the reason it's been years since I made them again). So when the ABC challenge was to make eclairs with chocolate pastry cream I was instantly excited. 

I've only ever made vanilla pastry cream, and as I read through the recipe I was secretly chiding myself for never making chocolate pastry cream before. I mean, I have a serious love for chocolate, so this should've been a no-brainer. 

I followed the recipe exactly, although I made my eclairs a bit smaller so I got 20 eclairs rather than just 12. The pate a choux dough recipe was different than what I'm used to, but it was fine. I don't think I'd use again though because it was a bit dry (although that could be because I made them small). 

Overall, the chocolate pastry cream was divine on it's own, but once the chocolate ganache was on top all the flavors became one, like a blur. Therefore, I still prefer a vanilla pastry cream over a chocolate pastry cream; I just love that combination of vanilla with dark chocolate.

I didn't really tweak any of the recipes because I wanted to try making it exactly as directed. Here are the links for the chocolate pastry cream and for the pate a choux dough (which will also make cream puffs!).

And as a side note, my husband and I took a minication up to Vermont and just happened to be staying near the King Arthur Flour store and bakery. I thought this was an appropriate picture since this year the ABC Challengers have been baking exclusively from King Arthur Flour. 

coco coco coconut!

 Flour bakery is a local bakery in the Boston area, where they're famous for their brioche sticky buns (they're amazing!), and my sister gave me their cookbook about a year ago.

Last year for Easter I made these coconut macaroons into sweet little "nests" and was so disappointed with the flavor- mainly because there was none to be found. I liked the simpleness of the recipe (basically a lot of coconut and egg whites) but was so unhappy with the taste that I thought I just didn't like coconut macaroons.

Croissant + Donut= CRONUT!

Imagine this: croissant dough cut into the shape of a donut, fried, drenched in glaze, rolled in sugar and filled with vanilla pastry cream. This, my friends is a cronut. 

This is the hot new donut trend that started in this small bakery in NYC. It’s reached National attention because people go crazy for these cronuts. The bakery only sells about 300 a day, with huge lines of people waiting hours to get one. Since I don’t live in NYC and am unable to get the real-deal, I have no idea how these compare. But who are we kidding? They are amazing on their own!

I was hosting a birthday dinner a few weeks ago and the birthday girl requested breakfast for dinner. I made all the traditional stuff: scrambled eggs with cheese, bacon, toast, a homemade granola with fresh berry compote over yogurt…but I needed a dessert. I wanted it to be in the breakfast theme and toyed with a few different donut ideas but was undecided.  My husband, Kent, had heard about cronuts on the radio and we both agreed they sounded pretty amazing, except for one problem- we don’t live in NYC. So when I stumbled across this video my interest was piqued.

When I told him I was going to surprise the birthday girl with a plate of cronuts he begged me to save him one (this is only worth mentioning because my husband isn’t crazy about sweets the way I am, so for him to be excited about this made me even more excited to make them).

After I watched the video I was hooked. The video made it look so easy, but they also left a lot out- like recipes for the pastry cream and glaze. So I’m going to break it down for you so you can make cronuts at home too! Kent told me he prefers the cronuts without the pastry cream, and this would save you a step; meaning you can have cronuts in your mouth even faster! But I disagree. I think the pastry cream is what sets them apart and really makes cronuts unique and special.

Now I see cronut knock-offs everywhere!
(recipe after the jump)