Nearly Undone By A Cream Puff

25 eggs, 1 1/4 pounds of butter, 4 failed attempts and a weekend of enduring my family's incredulity at my persistent failure with silly old pate a choux ( cream puffs for crying out loud!)....I present Eclairs. Yes, only the Daring Bakers would push me to such obsessive behavior. This month's challenge looked much easier on paper than in the reality of my kitchen. The challenge was Chocolate Eclairs from Chocolate Desserts by Pierre Herme. It's the third recipe in the book, so it must be a classic. Our hosts were Meeta K from What's For Lunch and Tony Tahhan from his eponymous blog.

My first 4 attempts were horrid. The butter just leaked out of the dough, it was play-dough in consistancy, no where near something that could be "piped." The fifth time around, I consulted my Gram Pam (who said the recipe was fine...and therefore the problem was with me). Then I consulted Cookwise by Shirley Corriher, who advised mixing the dough in a food processor...so I did, and the rest is choux history. Many thanks for MeetaK and Tony for a great challenge, check out their blogs for the recipe!

Mint Profiteroles with Hot Chocolate Sauce

Herme's book also has a recipe for "Mint Profiteroles with Hot Chocolate Sauce", which seemed a fitting use for the extra dough and chocolate sauce (which, up until the successful 5th attempt was going to be just Mint Ice Cream and Hot Chocolate Sauce).

Yipes, total bomb batch #3!

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But now on to happier things!......Egg and Dairy -Free Cream Puffs!

"Cookies and Cream Puffs" for my Allergic Kid and the Toothless Neighbor Girl

These actually turned out better than expected. I could have tinkered with them, but I was getting tired of cream puffs. The first try, I just substituted the eggs in Herme's recipe with EnerG egg-replacers...yuck! The egg replacers taste horrible without a lot of other things to mask their chalky flavor. The second round I used yeast and soymilk for leavening and they turned out not too bad...more chewy than tender puffy, but not bad. I filled them with whipped Rich's Whip and crushed vegan chocolate wafers, and topped with Ahlaska Chocolate Sauce.

1 cup water
1 stick dairy-free margarine, cut into bits
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon sugar
1 cup bread flour
1/4 teaspoon yeast dissolved in 1 T warm water.
3-5 T. soymilk ( I used Silk Vanilla)




Bring water, margarine, salt and sugar to a boil. Add flour and stir around until a nice ball forms, 2-3 minutes. Dump into a food processor and give it a pulse every few minutes until the dough has cooled down, 10 minutes or so. Add the dissolved yeast and mix well, then add enough soymilk 1 tablespoon at a time until a smooth thick paste forms (it reminded me of caulk!). Spoon or pipe onto parchment or Silpat lined baking sheet, about 2 tablespoons per cream puff. Cover baking sheet with a kitchen towel and let rest for an hour. Bake at 375 until puffed, golden brown and no longer goopy inside..about 25 minutes. Slice the puffs open immediately and allow to cool before filling.