L'ECLAIR CE N'EST PAS MOI; OR, MY FIRST DARING BAKERS' CHALLENGE

Shortly after I began blogging, I noticed a great many references to the Daring Bakers. In fact, many of the food blogs that I visited had their darling logo on them. After a bit of research I discovered that the Daring Bakers was a group of food bloggers who each month baked the same dessert from the same recipe and revealed their results on an agreed-upon day. Anyone could join, so after thinking about it for a few weeks, I contacted Lisa from http://www.lacucinamia/ and Ivonne from http://creampuffsinvenice/ and asked to be included. I was then permitted access to the special forums for Daring Bakers only. (Anyone can participate in the public forums; do check out http://www.daringbakers/ ).

I waited anxiously for the August challenge to be posted; I was stoked! When the day came and I discovered my first challenge would be eclairs, I felt somewhat smug. Why, I'd been making pate a choux since grade school. I made cream puffs at my mother's knee. We may not have used a pastry bag and we may have filled them with chocolate and vanilla pudding, but I'd made enough of them and plenty of gougeres to know that my skills with pate a choux had already been tested. As for a chocolate glaze, I've made enough ganache to feel pretty cocky about that, too. Bain Marie's don't scare me nor do custards and pastry creams. Yeah, this was going to be a piece of cake, forgive the pun.

I did decide to buy a new pastry bag and took a lovely field trip to the local restaurant supply store. The clerk was busy unloading a truck, but the accountant was very helpful. Between us, we figured out which tip was the 2 cm one and I left with my bag and 3 tips. I bought a couple of items that I didn't have on hand (heavy cream and chocolate) and told Larry that he and his co-workers could expect some yummy eclairs sometime in August.

I finally chose a reasonably cool--not humid--day and set about making the eclairs. The recipe was from Chocolate Desserts by Pierre Herme. I printed out the recipe (hmmm, 4 pages for 2 dozen eclairs) and read it over a few times. I set my eggs out to come to room temperature, assembled the necessary pots and pans and measuring tools, and did my mise en place. A little cakewalk here: a few weeks ago I went to the Le Creuset factory store and bought the most darling silicone prep bowls. I felt almost haughty using these for my mise en place. Pierre, je suis une DARING BAKER.

I made the chocolate sauce first. A few of the other participants had mentioned that making the sauce for the glaze seemed a bit of overkill. I have to agree. I now have a rather copious amount of sauce in the freezer since the recipe for the glaze called for a mere 7 tablespoons.

Next, I made the pate a choux. Mom and I always beat it by hand. Never mind that I have a perfectly wonderful KitchenAid mixer on my counter. I'm no wimp and I beat that dough into a glossy mass. Heavens knows, the way the pots and pans and spoons and cups were piling up in the sink, I didn't need a paddle to clean, too.

Taking my big, new pastry bag in hand, I proceeded to fill it with the warm dough. Using my template, I tried to squeeze uniform "chubby" fingers, as the recipe decreed. I was sweating now! The recipe said to expect 20-24; others had written that they didn't get that many. With tremendous exertion, I was able to eke out 17 eclairs. At this point, I was suspecting that the 2 on the tip didn't refer to centimenters, but to millimeters. These puppies looked small!!!

I had read others' experiences and placed a small bowl of water in the oven to produce steam (to help the eclairs rise). I was also prepared to leave them in the oven to prevent their deflating. As the eclairs began to bake, I finished the chocolate glaze and began the chocolate pastry cream. I kept glancing nervously through the glass oven doors. When would these babies start to rise? At the end of 20 minutes I had my answer. The horror! the horror! My eclairs--my first Daring Bakers challenge--were scrawny, parsimonious little digits, not the puffy, airy, chubby little darlings mom and I used to bake.

With sweat streaming down my face--and over other parts of my body as well--I set myself the task of cleaning up the kitchen while my--what to call them?--cooled. At this point Larry came home from work. No dummy, he! He could smell it in the air: defeat and a general air of displeasure. Then he looked in the oven. "What're these?" he asked, with barely suppressed laughter. There was no joy in Mudville, nor would there be any eclairs for the guys at work.

I went ahead and split the cooled eclairs, glazed their teeny tops, and filled them.
Larry is not as big a fan of bittersweet chocolate as I am, but he gamely tried a few of the eclairs there and then...and again that night.

At first I thought I might use mom's recipe to whip up another batch and use up all the leftover glaze and pastry cream. Then I thought not. Instead, I baked a simple yellow layer cake and used the cream as filling and the glaze as frosting. I'm sure the guys will like this just fine.

As for me, I'm humbled, but not defeated. Bring on that September Challenge. After all, I AM a Daring Baker!

P.S. I am not gracious in defeat and this failure bugged me for days. I kept going over the recipe and what I'd done. And then I had my epiphany, my "ah ha" moment. The directions for the pate a choux called for propping the oven door open with a spoon after the eclairs have cooked for a bit. I did so, and...I have a convection oven. It shuts off when you open the door. DUH!!!!!!!