Cream Puffs and Eclairs for Mother's Day (and brownies too)

Having recently learned how to make Pâte à Choux I thought I'd give my Mum some freshly made cream puffs and eclairs for Mother's Day. Also made a batch of brownies in the as-seen-on-tv brownie pan that my Mum gave to me a while ago.

The pâte à choux recipe is one that I learned in a croquembouche making class that I took at the Bonnie Gordon School of Confectionery Arts just last week. Much easier than I ever thought. Takes a little planning and some time commitment, but the results are well worth it.

Croquembouche = crunch in the mouth

Here's the croquembouche that I made... the whole scorching hot caramel thing is a little dodgy to work with. Managed to come away with only two molten sugar burns. Probably why I decided that my next venture into cream puff work would involve chocolate instead.

The pastry cream recipe I learned at the BG school was better than the one I've used before, better flavour and texture. For the cream puffs/eclairs, I lightened it up a little  by adding whipped cream before piping it into the pastry. The result is very smooth and creamy.

One of the techniques that I learned in the course was how to fill the puffs. In order to get them done fairly quickly (you don't want the pastry cream out of the fridge longer than necessary), you hold the puff in your left hand, the piping bag in your right and gently poke a hole in the puff with the baby finger of your right hand.

Once all the puffs/eclairs are filled, pop them into the fridge until you are ready to add the chocolate topping. What I use is a simple ganache which is 1/2 cup of whipping cream heated and poured over 1 cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips and stirred till it is all melted. I then spoon the chocolate on top of the slightly chilled puffs/eclairs.

It's important to keep the completed puffs/eclairs in the fridge until you are ready to eat. The pastry cream has eggs and cream in it and having it spoil would be really bad!

I decided to make a batch of my favourite brownies as well, just in case Mum felt like something a little less creamy. This is the same recipe I've already posted on the blog, I usually make these in cupcake format but wanted to use the pan that my Mum gave to me. It's the one with the divider thing you put in once the batter is in the pan. It actually worked quite well, though the divider thing is still soaking in the sink.. not sure how much fun that's going to be to clean.

 The idea is that you get an 'edge' with every piece of brownie. However, in order to do that, you really have to bake them longer than what is best for brownies, assuming of course you like your brownies sort of soft and gooey.

I topped each square with a little spot of ganache and pecan half.  Added a few strawberries for decoration and it looks like a nice Mother's day treat.

I haven't included the pâte à choux or the pastry cream recipes yet, but will update over the next couple of days.