August Daring Bakers Challenge - Choux Pastry

Kat of The Bobwhites was our August 2012 Daring Baker hostess who inspired us to have fun in creating pate a choux shapes, filled with crème patisserie or Chantilly cream. We were encouraged
to create swans or any shape we wanted and to go crazy with filling flavors allowing our creativity
to go wild!

Mmmhh, choux pastry! Is there anything more French than that? Somehow I couldn't get myself
to do swans even though I liked the idea (maybe for my daughter's next birthday party - however
might be too fancy) as I always had to think of eclairs. I love eclairs and they look so elegant.

I once had to develop recipes with coffee and remembered a coffee glaze I used for a cake. This time I spread it on the eclairs and also put some coffee flavour through the whipped cream. Okay, here I actually used a short cut, instead of making a custard cream I only whipped some cream
but it's just as nice, I promise!

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Pate a choux

Ingredients:
½ cup (120 ml) (115 gm) (4 oz) butter
1 cup (240 ml) water
¼ teaspoon (1½ gm) salt
1 cup (240 ml) (140 gm) (5 oz) all-purpose flour
4 large eggs

Method:
Line at least two baking sheets with silicone mats or parchment paper, or grease pans well.
Preheat oven to moderately hot 375°F/190°C/gas mark 5 .
In a small saucepot, combine butter, water, and salt. Heat over until butter melts, then remove from stove.
Add flour all at once and beat, beat, beat the mixture until the dough pulls away from the sides of the pot.
Add one egg, and beat until well combined. Add remaining eggs individually, beating vigorously after each addition. Resulting mixture should be somewhat glossy, very smooth, and somewhat thick.

Spoon the mixture into a piping bag fitted with a 1.5cm-wide plain nozzle. Pipe mixture into 11cm logs onto prepared trays, allowing room for spreading. Lightly sprinkle the trays with water. Bake for 20 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 160°C. Bake for a further 30 minutes or until puffed and golden. Turn oven off and leave eclairs in oven, with the door slightly ajar, to dry out. Remove the pastries to a cooling rack, and let cool completely. Cut eclairs in half horizontally. Spread top of eclair with coffee glaze and fill with coffee cream. Assemble and decorate with melted chocolate and sugar flowers.

 

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Coffee cream

 1 cup thickened cream
2 tbs pure icing sugar
2 tsp instant coffee granules
2 tsp boiling water
1 tbs Baileys Coffee Irish Cream liqueur 

Beat the cream and icing sugar in a bowl until soft peaks form. Stir the coffee granules and boiling water in a bowl until the coffee dissolves. Fold the coffee mixture and Baileys into the cream mixture until combined. 

Coffee glaze

1 cup icing sugar
5 teaspoons strong brewed coffee
3/4 teaspoon instant espresso powder (optional)

Combine everything in a medium bowl and whisk until smooth. Spread over the eclairs. Let set.