Eclair

When I was a child, I saw among my late grandfather's (he was a baker) collection of recipes was a picture of eclair.  At that moment, I thought they looked beautifully scrumptious.  Of course, at that time, my grandfather's bakery shop was no longer as active as it was in its heyday.  He was already half-retired.  So, the only cakes that were usually available in his shop were cup cakes and some decorative cakes for special occasion.  I never did get a chance to taste any eclair made by my grandfather.  But according to my father, grandfather often bake pate a choux when he was catered for weddings.  He'll make all sort of fillings including those heavy butter cream.

But with my grandfather's eclair in thoughts, I decided to make my own eclair.  I had in the past attempted them, but the longish shape of eclair fell flat for some reasons.  But after a few tries, I managed to keep them in its supposedly oblong shape.  The recipe for choux is fairly standard, I simply use one that is available online.  But I like American Test Kitchen's recipe the best.

As for the fillings, I made two types: plain vanilla custard and chocolate custard.  Normally I would split the eclair and layered the plain vanilla custard and chocolate custard.  But I somehow made the chocolate custard a little less firm.  So, I pumped the cream into the eclair.  I also made some ganache to use as the topping.

I slit a small opening at an obscure point of the eclair and squeezed the custard into the eclair until the cream began to ooze out of the opening.  Turning it upside down, I dip the eclair into the still warm chocolate ganache and walla...it is done!  Now....wait just one moment, at least that is what I always needed to remind my kids.  I stick the eclair into the fridge to harden the ganache slightly before serving.

Eclair is truly a labor of love.  But the end result is well worth it.  It really made me wish that I had spent more time with my grandfather.  Maybe I would have tasted more variety of cakes and sweets that way.  I might even pick up some tips from my grandfather.