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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11 Responses to “Cupcake Hero Challenge: Maple Walnut Cranberry Cupcakes with Cranberry Sauce and Maple Frosting”

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    1
    Ren — November 30, 2007 at 12:43 am

    Those look a-mazing. Gonna try that sometime for sure!

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    Elly — November 30, 2007 at 3:06 am

    Yum, these look and sound delicious!

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    Katie — November 30, 2007 at 12:50 pm

    Those sound delicious and look amazing!! GREAT idea and really well decorated!

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    4
    Dori — November 30, 2007 at 2:25 pm

    those are some pretty sexy looking cupcakes!

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    ~Amber~ — November 30, 2007 at 3:33 pm

    Wow, these look and sound amazing!! Good luck.

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    Lis — December 1, 2007 at 2:40 pm

    If I were judging this contest.. even with my dislike of cranberries (usually) you would win the grand prize.

    Not only for the combination of flavors which has me salivating – but for presentation. I absolutely LURVE the cranberry sauce under the pretty white maple buttercream. *swoon*

    xoxo

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    7
    MrsPresley — December 1, 2007 at 8:01 pm

    what a great cupcake! i love how you put everything together… i am drooling over here 😉

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    Mollie — December 1, 2009 at 3:58 pm

    I made them – they’re GREAT!
    http://eatrunread.blogspot.com/

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    Anonymous — October 28, 2010 at 7:59 pm

    Hi!

    I’m Veronica, I’m trying this recipe but how much Baking soda is it?
    You put in the directions to mix it, but in the ingredients is missing.
    Thank you!
    Later on I’ll let you know how they baked!

    Regards!

    Veronica

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    Jen — October 28, 2010 at 8:51 pm

    Veronica – It’s a typo in the instructions. It should say Baking Powder. I have corrected the post.

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    howitworks — March 15, 2018 at 6:12 am

    Your style is unique compared to other people I’ve
    read stuff from. Thank you for posting when you
    have the opportunity, Guess I will just book mark this web site.

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