Eclairs! Otherwise known as Dough Challenge, day 3

I had designated yesterday as THE day to try and make pasta for my dough challenge but....the hubby suggested Panera and I am a complete and total sucker for their food.  He knows this, which I'm sure is why he suggested it.  He wasn't in the mood for pasta and he had to veer me off course.  Not that I minded a bit!!  Their Mediterranean Veggie sandwich was just the thing to make me happy on a cold, rainy Friday evening.  But, still the question loomed, what kind of dough would be on tap for this evening then...????  As I looked all through Allrecipes,com, this one jumped out at me....Chocolate Eclairs.  As soon as I finished reading it, I looked at the clock, figured I had time before Jeremy got done working and made a little mental checklist of what I had on hand and decided I was good to go!

Now, calling this a dough recipe is a teensy bit of a stretch...no kneading, no rising, no real fussing of any kind but still intimidating.  So I set to work boiling my water and butter, dumping in the flour and salt and thought it looked a lot like play dough at this point...  Then I beat in 4 eggs, one at a time and it was a very sticky dough, but a dough nonetheless. Not having a piping bag handy, I sort of freehanded these and thought it wouldn't matter so much.  I knew they would be eaten so fast I'd have trouble snapping a picture. 

Then I put them in the oven to bake and they were so pretty when I popped them out!  Nice and puffed up.  But then they just, well, fell flat,  Woosh...all the air was gone.  They were still pretty but not nearly as puffed.  I will have to work on this apparently. 

So, I left to go pick up Jeremy while they cooled.  So, here's where I really cheated.  I did not make the rest of the recipe as written. At all.  It was 8:30 at night when I stopped in the grocery store to pick up the ingredients for the filling and had a flash of genius..or was it laziness?  Either way, I (gasp) bought premade vanilla pudding, and one of those new chocolate glaze sort of things from the baking aisle.  I admit it, I'm ashamed.  I don't think any of us were complaining or thinking about it too much while were scarfing them down though.  At least I still made the dough! 

So, I hope you all enjoy the picture of my deflated, half-ingredients-not-homemade chocolate eclair. I will work on being a bit more respectable today.  :-) 










Dough: A Memoir (Awp Award Series in Creative Nonfiction)

I think this is a book I might enjoy reading...I will have to watch for it to be cheaper via kindle...