Eclairs From the Farm!

I blame Beth.

She bought eclairs at Jackson's Bakery (a favorite hometown bakery in Greece, NY) and shared them with us last week...

And I remembered how much I love eclairs and cream puffs, and how amazing they are.

And.... honestly.... not so hard to make! You want to make the pudding first and chill it thoroughly, so here's the Vanilla Custard recipe (yes, you've seen this before, it's my go-to base for cream pies and cream puffs and custard filling for cakes! Why change greatness?

Vanilla Custard

4 tablespoons butter (melted in 3 quart pan)
1 1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup corn starch
4 cups milk
4 egg yolks
4 teaspoons vanilla extract

Melt butter in 3 quart pan over low heat. Mix sugar and cornstarch together. Add to butter and stir to combine thoroughly. Stir in milk. Whisk sugar/butter mixture into milk.

Return to heat and raise temp to medium/medium high. Whisk in egg yolks one at a time, then cook to boiling. Remove from heat, add vanilla.

If you don't like "skin" on pudding, lay plastic wrap directly on the surface of the pudding. Chill thoroughly.

Now we're going to bake the eclairs. Eclairs are simply an elongated egg puff, so they're not hard at all...

Pastry shell (or Choux pastry)

1 cup water
1 stick butter
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup flour
4 eggs

Bring water and butter to a boil until butter is melted.

Add salt. Stir in flour. Dough should "clean" sides of pan when thoroughly mixed.

Add in eggs, one at a time and mix in thoroughly with heavy spoon.

For cream puffs you spoon a generous glop (technical term!!!) onto baking sheet, making all mounds about the same size. For Eclairs, it's easiest if you use a pastry bag and you cut off the tip end to leave a 1" to 11/8" opening, and then pipe "tubes" of pastry onto the baking sheet. Egg puffs rise and spread, so leave space between each puff, on all sides.

Next time I'm going to make the opening in the pastry bag slightly bigger....

Here are the puffs part-way through:

Bake in preheated 400 degree oven for 25 to 35 minutes (depending on oven) until puffs are golden brown, puffed nicely and tender to touch.

Cool thoroughly.

When pudding is chilled and shells are cool, you can fill them in either of these ways:

Split the eclair, fill with pudding and then cover with sliced off top.

OR:

Using a wide circular tip, inject pudding up into eclair from top down from three evenly spaced spots along middle of eclair. This way your injections spots are covered by chocolate frosting.

When all eclairs are filled, trim with chocolate frosting:

HERSHEY'S PERFECT CHOCOLATE FROSTING

This is my go-to frosting I use for so many things. I always double it because it only makes a two-cup batch and two cups is about half as much as a Ruthy-cake needs... and chocolate frosting never goes to waste at our place!

1 stick butter
2/3 cup Hershey's Cocoa
3/4 teaspoon salt
3 cups powdered sugar
1/3 cup milk

Melt butter in 3 quart pan. When melted, stir in cocoa and salt. Add sugar and milk, then whisk in... Frosting thickens as it cools. Should be a nice spreadable consistency and if it's too thick, add a tiny bit of milk or water.

 Eclairs and cream puffs can be filled with chilled sweetened whipped cream, whipped to firm peaks, if preferred.

We love a selection of both!

And just for fun: The old Box Elder tree (and it's bugs and ants) is now down.... and the wood is being used for campfires and fun wood rounds for farm customers.... And there might be something interesting going on in the base of the tree if it ever stops raining! More on that later!

And Ms. Lena with a bow in her hair.... it lasted about five minutes, but I got pics while it was in there! :)

And then for Beth's birthday, I used the same pudding and frosting to create two Boston Cream Pies... her favorite...
So I scored points and made people happy.

And isn't that a nice thing to say about any old day?

'Til next week it's Ruthy, signing off!

Multi-published author Ruth Logan Herne lives on a crazy fun (or just crazy) pumpkin farm in Western New York where she has a couple of miniature donkeys, two dogs, three cats and occasional kittens, many bugs, more garter snakes than she would have thought possible, some random critter that was living the dream in her attic mid-winter and the occasional mouse. (Note to all, Ruthy does not now, nor does she ever intend to, make cute tiny mouse outfits for the small rodents that seem to find a way into her house on an annual basis. Mouse clothes are only cute in story books, and she will stand by that assessment. Find her on Facebook, visit her website ruthloganherne.com, e-mail her at loganherne@gmail.com or follow her on Twitter.