Éclairs au Café (Coffee Eclairs)

what comes to mind when you think of eclairs? are they just vanilla custard choux puffs with a hastily applied chocolate glaze which look ugly rustic at best? to me, they're far from that boring ol' combination of vanilla and chocolate. when i think eclairs, i think fauchon, the hyperluxe gourmet food shop in paris. fauchon is definitely synonymous with eclairs and here's why. decked in all sorts of flavors and designs imaginable, from the mona lisa eyes to garden peas to leopard prints on the icing, you'll never look at eclairs the same way again. even without all these adornments i feel that an eclair should be elegant looking - long and thin and topped with a shiny fondant glaze. therefore i started by trying out a relatively safe coffee flavor and pairing them with coffee creme patissiere, coffee fondant glaze + cocoa nibs for that extra crunch.

once again i can't help but use another pierre herme's recipe. his recipe for the pâte à choux is really really good its the only one i ever use these days. using a combination of milk and water for the dough, the puffs came out really nice and buttery. much better than recipes that use water alone. while i feel that the taste is close to perfection, i can't say the same for its appearance. still not happy with how they look so i still hv lots to improve on when it comes to piping the choux.

recipe sources : chocolate desserts by pierre herme (pate a choux), paris sweets by dorie greenspan(creme patissiere) for fauchon

ingredients (makes 10 eclairs) :

for the pate a choux :

125ml water

125ml milk

115g butter

pinch of sugar

1 cup flour

5 eggs, room temp

for the coffee creme patissiere :

2 cups milk

1 vanilla bean, split and seeds scraped

6 large egg yolks

1/2 cup sugar

1/3 cup corn starch, sifted

3 & 1/2 tbsps unsalted butter, diced, at room temp

1/3 cup espresso, cooled

for the coffee fondant glaze :

commercial pouring fondant, as desired

sugar syrup or water, as desired

instant coffee granules, as desired

directions :

1. to make the pate a choux, bring milk, water, butter, sugar to boil in a saucepan. when the mixture is boiling rapidly, add flour all at once then reduce the heat to medium. stir mixture with wooden spoon until it comes together and is dry. remove pan from heat and whisk in eggs one at a time, beating each egg until thoroughly corporated. put mixture into piping bag fitted with 1-inch wide plain piping tip and pipe 12cm lengths onto baking tray lined with baking paper. bake on 190C for 20 mins or until puffed and golden.

2. to make the creme patissiere, bring the milk and vanilla bean (pulp & pod) to a boil in a small saucepan over medium heat. cover the pan, turn off heat and allow the milk to infuse for at least 10 mins or up to an hour. reheat the milk before proceeding if it turned cold.

3. whisk together yolks, sugar & corn starch together in a heavy-bottomed medium saucepan. while whisking constantly, drizzle 1/4 of the hot milk into the yolks followed by the rest of the milk. discard vanilla pod.

4. put pan over medium heat and bring the mixture to a boil while whisking vigorously. keep at the boil while whisking, for another 1-2 mins. remove from pan and put cream through a strainer. cool the cream and set it over a tub of ice water until it reaches 60C.

5. remove from the ice-water bath and whisk in butter. refrigerate until cold.

6. lightly whisk the espresso into the pastry cream. carefully cut the eclairs horizontally in half. lift off tops and pipe the pastry cream and fill each eclair. refrigerate the eclairs until firm.

7. to make the fondant glaze, heat the glaze, syrup and coffee granules over medium heat in a small saucepan until melted and thoroughly combined. dip the eclairs into the glaze and smoothing the tops with a palette knife if necessary.