Chocolate Eclairs

I love Chocolate Eclairs, before I know how to make my own eclairs I always buy from Four Leave bakery. They sell nice eclairs and awesome cakes! Making eclairs are easy but you will need time...for making the puff, the fillings & the chocolate ganache. What I will usually do is to make my chocolate ganache before hand, the chocolate ganache can be kept in the freezer for months so when I wanna use it, I'll just take out scope the amount I want and using double boiler to melt it.

Not forgetting to mention that my brother is a BIG fan of my Chocolate Eclairs. Every time he sees me making eclairs, he's sure to WOW!! Enough of the story, here's the steps to delicious eclairs.

Ingredients:-
For the Chocolate Ganache
125g Dark Chocolate (Chopped)
150g Whipping Cream
15g Butter
1/2 Tbsp Honey

Directions:-
1. Cook whipping cream and honey until boil.

2. Add it into the dark chocolate. Stir until the chocolate is melted completely.

3. Add in butter and mix until smooth and well combined.

First before making the puff, brush the baking tray with margarine or butter. Then sprinkle some flour and make sure the baking tray are covered fully with flour. This is to make sure that the baked puff can be easily removed out from the tray. My sister taught me this method :) Previously I just piped the puff batter straight on the tray and I had a very hard time removing the puff and I always get broken bottom puff which can't hold the filling.

Ingredients:-
For the puff
60g Cake Flour (Sifted)
60g Bread Flour (Sifted)
80g Unsalted Butter
200ml Water
4g Sugar
2g Salt
4 Eggs (Beaten)

* Mix cake and bread flour together

Directions:-
1. In a pot boil water, unsalted butter, sugar and salt until small bubbles appeared.

2. Remove the pot from heat, add in the cake and bread flour. Using a rubber spatula with fast speed to stir everything into a soft dough.

3. Put the pot back to the heat, stirring the dough a few round, remove from the heat.

4. Add some beaten eggs into the soft dough and stir in rounds. DO NOT add the beaten eggs in all at one time. Add in bit by bit. You need not need to use up all the beaten eggs.

5. You know the puff batter is in the right condition when you see a "triangle" shape is formed when you lift up the batter using the rubber spatula. See picture.

6. Pipe the puff batter on the prepared baking tray in circle or finger shapes depending on your preference.

7. Lightly brush the surface of the puffs with the left over beaten egg, then using a fork to press the surface of the puffs lightly so that you won't see any sharp pointed batter.

8. Baked at 160 degree until puffs become brown colour or cooked.

9. Remove the puffs from oven and let cool completely.

Baked Puffs

Ingredients:-

For the Chocolate Cream Fillings

250g Milk

2 Large Egg Yolks

25g Sugar

1 1/2 Tbsp Corn Flour (Sifted)

100g Bittersweet Chocolate (Melted)

18.5g Unsalted Butter (Room temperature)

Directions:-

1. Boil the milk.

2. Using a hand whisk to whisk egg yolks, sugar and corn flour in a bowl.

3. When the milk is boil, pour the hot milk into the yolks mixture. Using the hand whisk to stir the mixture until well coporated. Strain the mixture.

4. Bring the mixture to boil. Using a wooden spatula keep stirring over the heat for about 10 seconds. Add in the melted chocolate. Stir until the mixture thicken.

5. Remove from the heat.

6. Add in the unsalted butter and stir until well combined.

7. Let the chocolate cream cool.

8. After the chocolate cream had cooled, pipe into the ready made puffs.

9. After all puffs are piped with chocolate cream filling, using our fingers to over turn the puffs to let the surface of the puff to be coated with the chocolate ganache.

10. Keep the eclairs refridgerated and you will get to taste delicious eclairs!