Sunday, August 31, 2008

Daring Bakers- Chipotle Chocolate Éclairs

The August Daring Bakers challenge came from Tony Tahhan and MeetaK.

I would love to say that my first Daring Bakers attempt went splendidly and without a hitch….alas I cannot. First, I had to enlist the help of wonderfully generous friend on account of the busted wrist. These were not a one-handed project. So we set aside a nice Saturday and got crackin.

We started with the standard Pâte à Choux and piped out our “chubby fingers”, my still slightly swollen fingers peeking out of my cast served as an excellent example. As we piped and they cooked we quickly turned into giggling children muttering things about wieners. In the midst of a very mature conversation we probably took them out a touch to early and most of them sank and looked like this
Some maintained their puffy namesake so we forged on…. To the chocolate pastry cream! We used the provided recipe with one addition that we all really, really enjoyed; to the cooling pastry cream we added about 2-3 tablespoons of the zesty delicious goo that comes in the can of chipotles. In my humble opinion this addition really stepped up the filling, prior it was kinda just an eggy-chocolatly-unremarkable filling, after there was a bit more depth and contrast.

We opted to use a Mark Bittman recipe for dark chocolate glaze out of How to Cook Everything. This is where things got ugly…..on paper sounded like it would whip up in a jiff and be wonderful. Not.so.fast. This is what we got.
The wheels were quickly coming off this bus. We decided to assemble the few puffy shells and coat the top with simple melted bittersweet chocolate. See not so bad.
The rest met a different fate. Being virtually unfillable, the chipotle chocolate éclair cake was born!
The “shells” were split, the really ugly pieces layered on the bottom of a 9/13 pan, filling smeared on top, and then covered with the nicer éclair bits and a bit of melted chocolate. I have to admit I am really not that fond of éclairs, these however actually benefited from some time in the fridge and definitely tasted better the next day after the cake sat-up a bit.
Hopefully I will have two working hands for the September challenge!

10 comments:

Eat4Fun said...

Congratulations on completing your first DB Challenge!

The chipotles is definitely daring, but I imagine in a delicious way.

The eclair cake is a very good idea on using those shells that weren't up to filling. Hmmm... I still have some in the freezer. I just may give that a try. :-) Great Job!

Mary said...

Way to save your challenge! And chipotles...I've tried cayenne and chocolate. Chipotle sounds intriguing!

Welcome to DB!

Lunch Buckets said...

Nice dare! Welcome to the group - and here's to 2 hands for next month! I suspect this conversation could quickly descend into beanie weanie territory as well....

silverrock said...

Mmm... I love spicy! And when combined with sweet, it's devilishly delicious :) Way to go on your first DB challenge, the eclairs look soo chocolatey and tasty

K8 said...

Thank you to everyone for your kind words! I am really looking forward to this months db!

Arlene Delloro said...

And so was born the eclair cake! Great save.

strayfarce said...

my goodness...small world! I was happy to come across a fellow Capital Region Foodie site (found you via almostfoodies via ridiculousfoodsociety), not realizing I actually KNOW you.

oh, the world is so funny lately. I thought I was original in starting my own foodie site. We'll have to get together and compare notes sometime. :)

Hope your arm is healing well! These chipotle eclairs look beautimous...what can with goo are you referring to? I've always gotten my chipotles dried...

K8 said...

Great site!

The arm is healing, slowly....

I used the canned chipotles that are usually in the mexi/taco stuff at the store. They like to pal around with the wee cans of sliced green chilies. They are a bit milder to cook with, that is if I can keep the hubbs from slapping them whole onto sandwiches.

Anonymous said...

Shut down my blog :(, I have been tracking the IPs coming in and out and I started to see New York State Senate, Assembly, Times Union, etc...Figured something funny was up.

K8 said...

DO NOT SHUT DOWN! It is because you are super famous.....

http://blogs.timesunion.com/tablehopping/?p=2441