Simple chocolate eclairs!

According to my mother, choux pastry is supposed to be incredibly hard to make... With that being said I have never made it before now, and it was as easy as making normal pastry to be honest. It's just got a few different stages to it. But please do not be frightened off by the idea of it being a teensy bit complex; because nothing beats home made eclairs! (Or profiteroles, you just spoon the mixture onto the trays and don't cook for as long) ALSO! When shopping around to get my ingredients I found that the co-op have 3 for 2 on all home baking products!!! A total bargain and great quality products. However I must also say I buy all of my butter from Tesco as its 92p a block, which is great value and it tastes lovely with any recipe. You can always use Margerine if you are really cutting corners, as it does reduce the price; but I've found that it really cheapens the taste and changes the end product. ALSO! please note that the batch of eclairs I was making involved a double batch due to the volume of people in my family, if that's what you'd like to do then just double up the ingredients! This recipe should make 12 nice sized eclairs.

To complete this recipe you will need;

1- 75g of butter

2- 200ml of water

3- a pinch of salt

4- 100g of plain flour

5- 3 medium eggs

6- 250ml of double or whipping cream.

For the topping you will need:

1- a block of milk chocolate

2- a block of dark chocolate

Firstly preheat your oven at 200 degrees/gas Mark 6. Then weigh out all of your ingredients, prep the butter by cutting it Into little squares like so:

Then measure out your water, I like to use a Pyrex jug as its sturdy, and easy to clean. Meanwhile sift out your flour to exclude any lumps as this can make it harder for your choux to come together.

Place the butter, water and salt into a heavy based pan allowing the butter to melt over a medium heat, once it's all melted, turn up the heat and bring the mixture to boiling.

The moment you reach boiling, take the pan immediately off of the heat and add your flour. Beating until the mixture is nice and smooth and comes away from the edges of the pan.

Mix the flour in so there are no lumps. It should like something like this:

Then crack your eggs into another jug (or the same jug you used for the water, to save on washing up)

Make sure there's no shell, it's easy enough to do, if there is don't panic just fish it out with a fork! Beat the eggs with a fork until they look like this:

Leave your choux (the flour, butter and water mixture) to cool in the pan on the side off of the heat, for around 5 minutes.

When it has cooled, add your beaten eggs a couple of spoons at a time, beating vigorously with each portion of eggs you add.

Make sure you beat in the eggs well, you want a glossy mixture, and you need to add the egg a little at a time, until the dough looks shiny, smooth and thick! You may find not all of the beaten egg is needed, however if you add all of it and the dough cannot support the spoon like in th picture below, you just need to beat the mixture for a few more minutes.

When your dough is ready like so, and can support a spoon to stand up, you need to use a spatula to help spoon the mixture into a piping bag. If you do not have a piping bag, you can do what I did and use a sandwich bag.

Sandwich bags are cheap, easy to get your hands on, and if you're relying on sandwiches for lunch then you'll have them in your cupboard anyway! Spoon your mixture into the bag and squeeze all excess air out of the top very carefully, then spin the top to seal the mixture in. DO NOT SNIP YOUR NOZZLE HOLE AT THE CORNER OF THE BAG, AS AFTER MUCH EXPERIMENTATION, I HAVE LEARNT, IT LEADS TO A MESS. Snip the hole in the centre at the bottom and gently squeeze sausage shaped lines onto your trays, I like to use grease proof paper as a lining on my tray to stop sticking.

Repeat until you have filled both trays, I made mine slightly too big and proportioned them wrong so I only got 5 to a tray, you should get 6.

Once you have piped all of the eclairs, make sure you sprinkle water onto the trays before placing them into the oven, this creates steam, without doing this your eclairs will not rise properly. Place them into your preheated oven for 30 minutes, until golden brown. When they are done, make sure you place them onto a baking rack immediately; otherwise your eclairs will go soggy.

Next get your cream and pour it into a bowl, using a wisk whip it until it is almost stiff, do not over wisk or your cream will separate. I like to get mine from Tesco as it tastes great and is natural, and only costs £1! Double cream is 90p for the same sized pot, however it takes longer to whip up, but is cheaper! I'm just kind of lazy if I'm honest.

I would reccomend using one pot per batch of eclairs, and to sweeten the cream I like to add a teaspoon or two of icing sugar. However, this is optional and down to personal preference! Whilst you whip your cream, use a sharp knife to make a slit lengthways down the middle of your eclair, like you would for a baguette. Then after filling your makeshift piping bag (sandwich bag) with the whipped cream, pipe it in the middle of the sliced open eclair like so:

Fill it with a reasonable yet generous amount, as if you pipe in too much cream it's wasteful and you'll end up with it spurting out the ends when you get round to eating them.

Repeat this step until you have filled all of your eclairs:

Then place them into the fridge so the cream doesn't melt at room temperature, whilst they're in the fridge create a ban-Marie. Fill a large saucepan up with water and set on the stove, inside the pan place a heat proof bowl with a nob of butter inside to melt. Butter is used here to help the chocolate to melt and ease sticking on the bowl in the process.

Whilst the butter is melting break up your chocolate, I like to use two parts milk chocolate to one part dark. As if it's purely Mille chocolate it tastes horrendously sweet, and if it's purely dark then it's rather bitter. This mix works well to give the best of both worlds. I used Doctor Oetker chocolate, as not only was it on three for two in the Co-op, but it's lovely chocolate; break it up into chunks like so:

When the butter has melted, turn the water down to a low heat, so it's simmering and the water won't splash. If any water gets into the bowl inside the pan, then the chocolate will be ruined and you will have to start again. Gently add the pieces to the bowl and stir carefully to avoid the water splashing in. This should take around 10 minutes to fully melt.

My photos are atrocious today due to bad lighting in the kitchen, believe me the chocolate looked far more appetising out of the picture. Once fully melted it should look glossy and shiny.

You'll have to move quickly at this point, as the chocolate will start to firm up, if it does don't worry too much as you can always set it back in the ban-Marie to warm up again.

Then, using teaspoons, spoon the molten chocolate onto your eclairs and smooth out over the top like in the picture below.

Repeat this process until all the eclairs are covered, they won't all look picture perfect; don't worry as its a trial and error kind of thing. My last three looked the best of the lot! Once all have been covered, place back into the fridge to allow the chocolate to set before eating. Here is the few I did kind of like the look of!