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.
I am Jen the Beantown Baker. Engineer by day and baking maven by night. Hubby serves as my #1 fan and official taste tester. We got hitched back in 2006. Barefoot. In the sand. With the waves crashing behind us. It was one of the best decisions we’ve ever made. 
These look fantastic and are so festive!
Oh my, these look divine! I recently made something similar, but with no chocolate – just a pumpkin batter with cream cheese topping. But I definitely think I must try these too.
These are absolutely beautiful!
Look wonderful!
These look awesome. I just wish it made a bigger pan!
They’re pretty rich, but I would imagine you could just double it and make it in a 9×13 pan if you wanted!
I made pumpkin spice brownies on Friday and they were delish so I bet these are EVEN BETTER! Thanks for sharing and I’ll be following your tweaks!
~ingrid
i always make a pumpkin cheesecake in the fall with a ginger cookie crumb crust, but i’m liking the chocolate component in your recipe even more.
oh yum – love pumpkin, and the chocolate/pumpkin combo looks wonderful!
These look great! Is there a way I can make them non-dairy? Something I can sub the cream cheese for? Thanks!
Heather – I’ve had great luck subbing Tofutti Better than Cream Cheese in cheesecake recipes in the past. I think that would definitely work and you could use Earth Balance in the brownie portion. Let me know how it turns out if you try it.
Hi Jenn! I just wanted to let you know that you won the giveaway on my blog last week. I emailed you, but never got a response. Could you email me your mailing address to jennharton@paducah.com. I have to pass it along to myblogspark so they can send you your prize package!
Thanks, Jen…I’ll let you know how they come out!
OH wow these do look delicious! I love all that swirled pumpkin…yum!
Those look amazing!
Wow, I love these! My husband would die of happiness of I made these for him – pumpkin cheesecake is his favorite thing for fall.
They look like tiger fur – very cool! What an interesting flavour combination.
We love these at my house! I like your idea of dark chocolate – I will have to try that next time.
beautiful! And they look so delicious!! I agree I don’t normally think of pumpkin with chocolate… but you have me convinced!
The tops of these are a work of art! Love it!
Three of my favorite thi ngs in one dessert! Chocolate and pumpkin and cheesecake! How perfect…
~Nancy
Three of my favorite thi ngs in one dessert! Chocolate and pumpkin and cheesecake! How perfect…
~Nancy
hi.. just dropping by here… have a nice day! http://kantahanan.blogspot.com/
The side-view shot totally won me over. These look delicious!
This looks so yummy.
I now know what to make for the office potluck!
Those look amazing. I love pumpkin with chocolate, I plan on making these soon.
Your brownies look delicious! I am curious since I would like mine to taste more like pumpkin pie than plain pumpkin should i add pumpkin pie spices or follow your recipe for the spices?
Thanks!
fawkes – There are a decent amount of spices in the pumpkin portion of the batter. I would recommend making is as the recipe states, then taste it before you pour it into the pan. Maybe then add some pumpkin pie spice if you’d like.
I made these over the weekend and they were scrumptious!! I’m not a huge fan of pumpkin but this recipe is now a fall staple. I plan on making them for the family on Thanksgiving…thanks for sharing this!
I made these the other day and they were great! a hit at work! yum! thanks!
I stumbled across your blog from a Facebook friend and made these brownies last night. DELICIOUS!! I doubled the recipe and it does just fit in a 9×13 pan and took about 60 mins to bake. It’s worth the wait for them to be chilled in the fridge. The flavors are even more delicious that way.
Oh YUM! And gorgeous, to boot. I never thought pumpkin and chocolate go together either, until I tried it! 🙂 Now I’m hooked. Good idea to double up on the cheesecake layer…you can never have enough pumpkin cheesecake after all!
Thank you so much for participating in our event! These brownies look amazing. They say Halloween to me for sure!
I made these– now I love them! Will be repeated each fall 🙂
Amazing! I loved these so much I played with them a bit and made cranberry cheesecake brownies for my christmas baking.(I didn’t stumble on to these till christmas.) I’ll let you know when I put those up on my blog! With credit to you of course!
Lexi – cranberry cheesecake brownies sound very intriguing. Can’t wait to see them.
Hi Jen! I made these for Heather@BFM’s (comment listed above) birthday and she loved them! Unfortunately I could not find the Hershey’s Special Dark cocoa powder (I tried 3 stores) so I had to make them with the regular cocoa powder. Can you tell me where you found the Hershey’s Special Dark??
Kasey – I have actually had a hard time finding it as well. I had actually all but given up on it until one day it caught my eye at the grocery store. I proceeded to buy all three containers. I would say just keep an eye out for it and good luck!
1/2 cup of flour seems like very little. Is that correct?
Pup – Yes, that is the correct amount of flour. Most brownie batters have very little flour in them.
Just made these- delicious! I only had the milk chocolate powder, so I’m excited to try it again with the special dark powder.
I doubled the recipe and it perfectly filled a 13×9 pan so you might try it. 🙂 And they are amazing. Also I used margerine not butter and found they were more moist. Happy Baking!
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I made these with my nieces and over all they were pretty good, but something about the pumpkin part tasted off. Still, fun and festive to make!