Eclairs – Daring Bakers

It’s been a while since I’ve been able to participate in a Daring Bakers Challenge. But I was excited to see this months challenge was eclairs. I’ve never made eclairs but really enjoyed eating them in the past. This month really flew by. I made these eclairs last weekend with plenty of time to write up my post. Then we had some family members in town and I just couldn’t find time to write this up until today. So I am a day late on posting, but better late than never!

I followed the recipe exactly for the dough and the chocolate glaze. For the pastry cream, I was worried that chocolate would make the eclair too chocolatey (is there such a thing? I say no, but hubby thinks there is).

I decided to do a raspberry pastry cream, but didn’t have raspberries on hand at the time I made it. Instead did vanilla pastry cream. For half of the pastry cream, I mixed in some mushed up raspberries after sending hubby to the store for me 🙂 The other half got the vanilla pastry cream.

I myself am not a huge fan of pastry cream. I much prefer whipped cream in the center of eclairs.

As I mentioned, I followed the recipe exactly for the dough. That includes the timing and the propping of the door with a wooden spoon. Based on what other Daring Bakers had said, I decided to cut slits into the eclairs immediately after baking and then letting them cool in the cooling oven. The ones that didn’t deflate were wonderfully hollow.

At first, I had the oven door entirely open but I did notice the eclairs were starting to deflate, so I closed the oven door and then propped it open to let them cool. The eclairs that were very close to the door did deflate while the others did not.

Thanks to our hosts (Tony Tahhan and Meeta) this month for choosing such a great recipe. I definitely enjoyed making the eclairs, although I doubt I’d make them again. It was a significant amount of work and hubby wasn’t crazy about them.

I’m not going to post the recipes here, click through to the hosts’ posts to see the recipe. The recipe I used for the pastry cream can be found here. As I mentioned, I didn’t have raspberries when I made it so I just left them out. Once it was completely cooled, I added 1 pint of smashed raspberries to 1/2 of the cream.

This chocolate glaze was amazing. I made 1/2 of the chocolate syrup recipe and it was perfect for the glaze. The leftover glaze was used on bread and then mixed with whipped cream for frosting.

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9 Responses to “Friday Faves – Two Peas and Their Pod makes Pomegranate White Chocolate Chunk Cookies”

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    The Small Boston Kitchen — January 14, 2011 at 1:07 pm

    What a great idea for a cookie! I love the pictures, and that you thought the add pomegranate to cookies…will have to give these a try, great post!

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    Blog is the New Black — January 14, 2011 at 1:24 pm

    I made TPATP’s pom cookies, too! Delicious! Yours look awesome.

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    Cathy B. @ Brightbakes — January 14, 2011 at 1:33 pm

    These never fail to make me think “What a great idea”…Pomegranate in a cookie is so unique and pretty! (and tasty!)
    love,
    cathy b.

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    Fun and Fearless in Beantown — January 14, 2011 at 1:49 pm

    I love the pairing of pomegranate and white chocolate. I’ve never eaten that flavor combination before but I can how imagine how good it tastes!

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    Rachel — January 14, 2011 at 3:37 pm

    Looks delicious!!

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    Daisy — January 14, 2011 at 4:59 pm

    cute blog name! this combo sounds amazing!

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    Megan — January 14, 2011 at 6:46 pm

    Maria has such a great blog… and those cookies sound so good. I kind of want to make a chocolate cookie with pomegranate seeds now.

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    Maria — January 14, 2011 at 7:06 pm

    Thanks again for having me! This was fun:) I hope your readers like the cookies, we sure do:)

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    Peggy — January 16, 2011 at 11:17 pm

    I love little “experiments” that go so right! Can’t wait to try these cookies!

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