This week our baking assignment landed on the day I have book club and I thought it would be nice to share Éclairs. I have never made Éclairs before so I was crossing my fingers that they would come out well.  I channeled Mardi Michel’s confidence from eatlivetravelwrite.com and forged ahead.

This was a multi-step process that I stretched over two days.  First I made the crackle top dough (page 226) and put that in the freezer.  First mistake, I did not double the recipe as Dorie states but then I was pleasantly surprised to read from my fellow bloggers that it was not needed.

Next I made the pastry cream (page 430) since this could also be made ahead of time.  I had some issues with this recipe as it thickened way too fast and got gloppy. Then when I tried to strain it it was just too thick to go through my strainer.  Next time I will skip that step.

The following day I made the cream puff dough since directions were “just made and ready to use”. Most bakers seemed to think that this dough was quite simple and came together easily and I would agree.  I read all the bloggers techniques for scooping the dough to make the bubble eclairs.  First I used a measuring spoon to portion 2 teaspoons as Dorie suggested was a bubble size.  This gave me a visual and then I decided to pipe the rest using my pasty bag as this was much faster.  It worked like a charm and I made 16 eclairs.  One turned out giant with all the remaining dough and magically disappeared after it came out of the oven.

I filled the eclairs just prior to my guests coming over.  I had enough pastry cream to fill 8 eclairs. Everyone enjoy their dessert.  I would say it was a success.

Tuesdays With Dorie is an international baking group working our way through Baking Chez Moi by Dorie Greenspan. We don’t publish the recipes, instead we encourage you to buy the book. To see if the others thought go here.