Tag: passionfruit

Makes: 15 eclairs

Time required: 2 hours

Difficulty: ★★☆☆☆

Inspiration:

Since moving to Hong Kong in February this year, I have been baking using a portable oven (besides my trips back to Melbourne). For those of you who haven’t lived in Hong Kong before … the apartments are small and most apartments have tiny kitchens without ovens. Although this portable oven (around the size of an Australian microwave) is great for cooking and basic cakes, the temperature isn’t very even or reliable so I haven’t been brave enough to try baking macarons in Hong Kong. But I am dying to bake some sort of pastry … so I decided to try a choux pastry!

My favourite eclairs are the salted caramel ones from Chez Dre in Melbourne and the world-famous eclairs from Sadaharu Aoki in Tokyo. Having no prior concept of what makes choux pastry puff, I’ve always marvelled at how patisseries manage to fill the eclair with custard without cutting the eclair open. Turns out it’s quite simple! 🙂

Ingredients:

Passionfruit custard:

• 200g passionfruit, seeds removed
• 350ml milk
• 2tsp vanilla been paste
• 4 egg yolks
• 100g caster sugar
• 50g cornstarch
• 20g unsalted butter

Choux pastry:

• 125g bread flour, sifted
• 100ml milk
• 100ml water
• 10g sugar
• 1tsp salt
• 100g unsalted butter
• 4 eggs

Chocolate ganache:

• 200g chocolate
• 150ml cream

Meringue:

• 2 egg whites
• 180g caster sugar
• 65ml water

Instructions:

Passionfruit custard:

1. whisk sugar and egg yolks until pale.
2. whisk in the cornstarch
3. heat milk and passionfruit over low-med heat until simmering
4. pour 1/3 of the milk/passionfruit into the egg yolk mixture whilst whisking, then pour the entire mixture back into the rest of the milk/passionfruit
5. place back on low heat, stirring constantly until the custard thickens
6. remove from heat and stir in the vanilla paste and butter
7. cover in glad wrap with the glad wrap touching the surface and set aside to chill in the fridge while making the eclair shells

Choux pastry

1. Preheat oven to 200°C
2. Place the water, milk, butter, sugar and salt into a saucepan over low heat
3. Once the mixture just comes to a boil, take off the heat, pour in all the flour and mix thoroughly with a wooden spoon (it should now look like mashed potato)
4. Place the mixture back on low heat and continue to mix for another 2-3mins until the dough forms a ball and comes away from the sides of the pan
5. Pour the dough into a bowl and mix with wooden spoon to cool slightly before adding the eggs
6. Add the eggs one at a time and ensure each egg is well incorporated before adding the next egg. This allows greater control over the amount of egg to ensure the mixture doesn’t become too runny from too much egg
7. The mixture is ready when you lift the wooden spoon and the dough slowly falls off the spoon
8. Place dough into a piping bag fitted with a 1cm star nozzle lines around 10-12cm long. Be sure to leave enough space between for the eclairs to expand in the oven
9. Bake for 10mins at 200°C and then reduce the temperature to 180°C and bake for another 20mins
10. once removed from the oven, use a toothpick to poke a whole through each meringue to let the steam out. This prevents the eclair shell from becoming soggy or sinking
11. set aside to completely cool before adding in the custard

Chocolate ganache:

1. Bring cream to boil and pour over dark chocolate. Set aside for 2 minutes
2. Mix in the melted chocolate with the cream
3. stir in the butter, and set aside to cool slightly

Assembling the eclairs:

1. once the shells have completely cooled, poked three holes evenly spaced along the top of the eclair
2. place the custard into a piping bag fitted with a long narrow tip and fill each eclair with custard through the three holes
3. coat the top of the eclair in chocolate ganache using a spatula

Many blogs tell you to poke the holes and fill the eclairs from the botton of the eclair shell however I prefer to pipe it through the top so I can cover up the holes with ganache.

Meringue:

1. whisk egg whites until foamy
2. heat sugar and water over low-med heat until the syrup reaches 120ºC
3. while whisking the eggs, pour the sugar syrup in a thin stream down the side of the whisking bowl
4. continue to whisk the eggs until it form stiff peaks
5. place the meringue into a piping bag fitted with a petal tip and pipe the meringue onto the eclairs. you could also use other piping tips to create other patterns

To finish … torch the meringue and decorate the eclairs with raspberries and mint leaves 🙂

 

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