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. 

cha-cha-cha-churros!

Happy Cinco de Mayo! I thought I'd celebrate the day with some churros... but these are wonderful any day of the year. There's something really amazing about these. I can't decide if it's the soft, pillowy center of the churro, the crunchy sweet texture of the cinnamon sugar or if each bite drenched in dark chocolate sends me over the moon. It's probably all of the above.

I'll admit, deep frying is not in my comfort zone but these are easy to make and fry up quickly. These would be great to make for your family, or during a party, because you can create an assembly line of helpers. Have someone rolling the hot churros in cinnamon sugar, another person putting the chocolate in small bowls and then everyone gets to enjoy the process of making and eating fresh, hot churros.