Tartine's Eclairs

I'm back! My last few weeks have been spent at the bakery in a blurry of cookies and cakes...not that I'm complaining. The 24/7 holiday music sure has me feeling some type of way.

Like I said in my last post, I'm kind of over the traditional holiday flavors. Instead, this recipe is more of a symbolic dessert (although eclairs make me think of tea parties, which are kind of christmasy to me? idk).

We used to spend holidays with my Grandma out in Arizona, and I have the best memories of getting our annual tub of cream puffs from Costco. We'd sit and play card games and use the puffs as a reward. I just thought it was the coolest thing ever.

I always felt like choux paste was a daunting recipe...and to be honest there is a point along the way where it looks like it's falling apart. BUT if you stick it out for another 5 minutes it all comes together and was surprisingly easy to work with.

Here's the recipe from Tartine:

​choux paste
​
1/2 cup nonfat milk
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup unsalted butter
1 tsp sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup + 1 tbsp flour
​5 eggs

​

Preheat your oven to 425. In a saucepan, bring the milk, water, butter, sugar and salt to a full boil. Add all the flour at once and stir until it becomes smooth. This should take just a few minutes.

Move the dough to a mixing bowl and use the paddle attachment. Add each egg one at a time until the dough gets thick and shiny, and then use a piping bag to create the long eclair or round cream puff shape.

Bake for about 10 minutes (should puff up and start to get golden), then turn the oven down to 375 and continue for another 10 minutes. Once out of the oven, poke each shell in order to create a vent. This allows them to cool without collapsing.

I just whipped some heavy cream for the cream puffs and filled the eclairs with vanilla pudding to finish it off. A fairly simple recipe with a super impressive outcome!

Until next time!