Chocolate Eclairs

I'm always ripping out recipes that catch my eye in magazines or newspapers. I have lots of scrappy bits of paper floating around my desk with recipes for all sorts of things - panna cotta, chocolate cake, ravioli, meat ragu sauce. I really have to come up with a proper filing system.

Anyway, this recipe for chocolate eclairs is from the Good Weekend magazine (free with the Sydney Morning Herald or the Age). It's from Cath Claringbold who is one of the founders of Mecca Bah. Despite Mecca Bah being a chain restaurant (shudder). It's a good chain ('good chain' almost sounds like an oxymoron).

Chocolate Eclairs

120 g plain flour

250 ml milk (full fat please)

pinch salt

pinch caster sugar

120 g unsalted butter

4 large eggs

1 quantity pastry cream

good quality dark chocolate (melted)

To make the pastry cream:

300 ml milk (full fat please)

1 vanilla bean, split and seeds scraped

3 egg yolks

60 gm caster sugar

20 gm plain flour

20 gm corn flour

In a saucepan eat the milk and vanilla seeds just to the boil.

Place the egg yolks, sugar and flours into the bowl of an electric mixer and beat until pale and smooth.

Once the milk has boiled, remove from the heat and incorporate a third into the egg mixture. Mix and then pour back into the saucepan with the remaining milk.

Return the saucepan to a medium heat and, stirring continuously, bring the pastry cream gently to the boil. Stir for 30 to 60 seconds until it has thickened. Remove from the heat. Pour into a clean bowl and cover with cling wrap to prevent a skin forming. Leave to cool.

To make the choux pastry shells:

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees and sift the flour.

Heat the milk, salt, sugar and butter in a large saucepan. Bring to the boil and remove from eat. Add the flour and beat vigorously with a wooden spoon until the mixture is smooth and starts to pull away from the sides of the pan, forming a ball. This takes about 20 seconds.

Return the saucepan to the stove over a low heat and continue to beat for 1 minute. Place the mixture into the bowl of an electric mixer and beat at high speed for 30 seconds to release heat and steam from the mixture. (This can be done with a wooden spoon if you don't have a mixer)

Reduce the speed slightly and add the eggs, one at a time. The finished dough should be glossy and soft.

Place the dough in a piping bag and pipe 9cm lengths onto a greased, lined tray. Bake in the oven for 20 - 30 minutes or until the pastries are golden and crisp.

Place the pastries on a wire cooling rack. With a sharp knife make a tiny slit in the end to allow the steam to escape. Leave to cool completely. (At this stage the pastries can be frozen if you wish to have them later). My pastries deflated a lot while cooling.

To assemble:

Fill a piping bag with the cooled pastry cream. Make a tiny hole in the end of each pastry. Gently fill with the pastry cream until you see or feel it reach the other end.

Melt some dark chocolate and dip the tops of the eclairs in to ice.

Decorate your eclairs. I used crystallised violets which I bought from Black Pearl Epicure. I chopped them very finely to make into a purpleish, sugary dust.