Party Time is Pastry Time

It's no secret that I love second hand stores.

OK, not the actual store so much as the great deals and buried treasure.

Does that make me a shopping pirate?

Cool.

Back to my story!

Salvation army find.

Vintage aluminum cookie/pastry press. 

Still in the box with instructions.

Never used.

$5.99

Arrrrrrr.

And so with gusto I tried out one of the recipes included in the manual.

Eclairs.

But y'all know I tweaked it!

 Here's what you need to make Vintage-y Vanilla Bean Eclairs:

1 cup water

1/2 cup of butter or margarine

1 cup of sifted flour

1/4 tsp. salt

4 eggs

Preheat oven to 450.

Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.

1. In a medium saucepan, combine water and butter; bring to a rolling boil.

2. Reduce heat to low and add sifted flour and salt.

3. Stir vigorously until mixture leaves sides of pan and forms a stiff ball.

4. Remove from heat.

5. Add eggs one at a time, beating hard after each egg.

6. Transfer to a piping bag or cookie press.

7. Pipe 4" tubes of batter, 2" apart.

I think you could remove the dough from the pan and quickly put it in your mixer to add in the eggs. I did it the way the book said, silly me. I was sure my arm was going to fall off.

Now, I'm figuring that not all of you have a 1950's cookie press....

So you can use a piping bag with a large tip, or even better use a large freezer bag and snip a good 3/4 inch corner off the bottom.

Put in the oven for 15 minutes at 450. Then another 20 minutes at 325.

This worked perfectly!

 Transfer immediately to a cooling rack. Let cool completely then slice in half.

While these are cooling, make your filling and glaze..

Filling:
2 cups of whipping cream
1/2 cup of sugar
1 vanilla bean, seeded
1 tsp. of vanilla extract
 Whip all this until thick and fluffy.

Glaze:
1/3 cup of butter, melted
2 squares of baking chocolate, melted and cooled
1 cup of powdered sugar
1 vanilla bean, seeded
1/2 tsp of vanilla
1 shot of espresso or strong coffee
Mix together until smooth and ribbon-y.

Now for assembly.

I piped the whipped cream onto the bottom part of the eclair, but you could spoon it too.

Top whipped cream with the top half of the eclair.

Drizzle glaze over top.

The last step is to take these to all your friends.

You won't be able to stop eating them.

I sent Ben over to my friends house and to my parents to get rid of them. 

This was after he inhaled 3 in a row!