Life has changed very much for me over the past few years
by all means. Looking back to where I am, what I did, how I thought, what I
cooked, what I ate and what I did, all has changed big time. Settling down in
UK and Blogging has done so much to me, probably transformed me to a different person.
I learned many things – to live in a new country with conflicting culture, food, ethos and ethics, respect it
and live with it with my own values and what I was taught. And with blogging, I
learned different kinds of cooking, baking, making new friends with same
interests and learn much about photography. On the contrary, it has also added
few extra pounds to my waistline. Would I have done this if I were not into
blogging? May be not. What I wanted to do in life was something different and
what I am doing is greatly antonymous to what I am supposed to be doing. Looking
at it, I get a feeling that I am more of a foodie fanatic and do something in
food, but what do I do with the education that I earned painstakingly?
I was never the kind who cooked and baked so much and I
was never someone who knew how to handle any camera, let alone shoot pictures.
I am an admirer of everything beautiful- beautiful food, beautiful pictures, beautiful
people. To achieve beautiful food doesn’t only mean that you need to cook it
beautifully, but you also need to style
it or garnish it and be able to take beautiful pictures if you are a food
blogger. You eat with your eyes, before you actually eat. So every food served
should be beautifully presented to make it more appealing. I had
spend several hours looking at beautiful foodie pictures, fabulously styled and
trying to figure out how they must have done it! I spent huge amount of time
reading photography tutorials, practiced what I learnt, pestered several bloggers, read many
articles, borrowed many books from library and went through them and practiced
them to study more. Now, is it food or photography that I love and I want to
move on with?
Soon after my college, I had my baby boy and not much
later, I was uprooted to an Alien land called England where I had no relatives
and friends and everything was unfamiliar to start with. It was a brand new
world, a world and life that I was not a bit familiar with. Especially being
brought up in an orthodox family, it took me a long while to adjust to the new
culture, grasp the ethos and the people.
The only entertainment was the tv and all that I liked
was the cookery show. There were soaps and comedy trails and movies, but it was
the cookery shows that broadened up my culinary horizons. There started my
cooking expedition. I was inspired and motivated to cook, bake and serve.
Disasters after disaster, my cooking started to show some better outcomes. Rachel
Allen, James Martin, Ina Garten, Farah Khan were few of the chefs that taught
me what cooking was all about and ispired me to enter the Kitchen. They were
the people who taught me how to handle a kitchen beautifully.
Nowadays, the little baby has grown to a five year old.
TV is no more my own possession. Sponge bob square pants, Ben 10 and others
dominate the screen these days.It used to be Mickey Mouse, Tom & Jerry
once. We still watch Tom & Jerry together. Before drifting further away, the other day I
was skimming through the cookery channels before putting on the cartoon for the
son. I happened to watch Great British Bake off series and they were baking
Eclairs in the show when my son said, he wanted some éclairs and asked me if I
could bake it for him. I was dying to bake some goodies as I haven’t baked
anything in January to keep some justice to the resolution of cutting down on
my baking. I just had to break it with éclairs. He never asks for something
until he really likes them. So the next day, I went ahead and baked some
éclairs.I don’t regret, they were so good and he being one of my best critics
loved it to bits.
Eclairs are French pastries basically made of a very
light pastry dough called Pâte à choux or choux pastry. It’s the same dough
that is used to make profiteroles, croquemboches, Cream puffs, St. Honores
cake, beignets etc. The pastry is very light, crispy and airy, and is usually
filled in with different types of cream and dipped in chocolate or caramel. The
recipe is very straight forward, you could use the same recipe for
profiteroles, but instead of piping them into fingers, just spoon them into
small mound spaced well as they expand quite well during baking.
As long as the recipe instructions are strictly adhered
to, choux pastry will always give perfect results. Before starting to make the
pastry, collect all the ingredients together as all the flour needs to be added
quicly as possible as the mixture has come to a boil. Raw choux pastry is too soft
and sticky to roll out, so it is generally piped or spooned onto a dampened
baking sheet for baking. During baking, moisture in the dough turns to steam
and puffs up the mixture leaving the centre hollow. Thorough cooking is
important as insufficiently cooked, choux pastry will collapse when taken out
from oven and there will be uncooked pastry in the centre to scoop out. When
the cooked choux pastry has cooled down, it can be filled with whipped crème or
any savoury filling. Choux pastry can also deep fried in oil – pipe or spoon it
directly into the oil. ~Complete Book of desserts by Good Housekeeping.
Éclairs with Crème Chantilly filling
and Chocolate Glaze
Makes 12-14 small fingers
Ingredients:
50g butter, cut into cubes
150ml water
65g plain or strong plain flour,
sifted
2 eggs, lightly beaten
For the filling
300ml whipping cream, whipped
2 tbs icing sugar
½ tsp vanilla essence
For the chocolate icing
150g plain chocolate, chopped
3 tbsp milk
Method
1.Put the butter and water into a
heavy saucepan and heat over a medium heat until the butter melts. Bring to a
boil and then remove the pan off the heat.
2. Tip the flour in all at once
into the hot liquid and beat thoroughly with a wooden spoon. Stir the mixture vigorously
over the heat until the mixture forms a smooth, soft ball. (Take care not to
over beat the mixture as the mixture will become fatty).
3. Remove from heat and leave the
mix to cool slightly for couple of minutes.
4. Gradually add in the eggs,
beating well between each addition, to form a smooth, shiny paste. It is
important to beat the mixture well at this point to trap in as much as air as
possible.
5. To fill the pastry bag, fit a
1-2 cm nozzle on to a piping bag and place it in a tall jug and turn back the
open end over tha jug rim. Spoon the pastry in the bag and squeeze it down to eliminate
any air bubble.
6. Butter a baking tray and
sprinkle with water. Pipe 12-14, 7cm fingers of pastry, spaced 2 inches apart, and
cut the ends with a wet knife. Bake in a preheated oven at 200°C for about
20-30 minutes or until well risen and is golden in colour. Remove them from oven,
split open each éclairs for the steam to escape, return back to oven and bake
for further 5 minutes at 190°C. Remove from oven and cool it completely on wire
rack.
N.B: For making profiteroles,
instead of piping fingers, pipe about 20
small bun shapes on two damp baking sheets and bake as above. Once baked, poke
a hole in the side of each choux buns with a knife or skewer and bake for
further 5 minutes.
For the Chocolate Icing
Gently melt the chocolate with
the double cream/milk in a bowl over a pan of simmering water, stirring until
smooth and shiny (taking care not to let it get too hot).
For the Crème Chantilly Filling
Whip the cream to stiff peaks and fold in sifted icing
sugar and vanilla essence. Chill until used.
When the eclais are cooled down, Spoon
the crème Chantilly into the a piping
bag and pipe the crème onto one side of éclairs and sandwich with other side.
You caould also poke a hole into the éclairs instead of cutting them in half
and pipe the cream through the hole until it is well filled.
Pour melted chocolate into a
small deep bowl and dip the top of each éclair into it to form a glace. Serve
immediately.
It is better to serve immediately
as it would go soggy if they are kept filled for long. You could also fill the pastry with creme, ice it and keep in fridge until ready to serve.
But it is also better to
fill the pastry just before serving. The pastry could be frozen, and heated in
the oven to crisp up once they are thawed.
