Two days ago I made Chestnut Cream. Ever since, I’ve been pondering what to do with it. Bake a roulade and use it as the filling? Make a stack of crepes? Buy some really good ice cream and use it as a topper?

And then I saw THIS recipe for Chestnut Cream Eclairs. *swoon*

You make pâte á choux (water, butter, sugar, salt, flour and eggs), pipe out the mini eclair shapes and bake them off. You mix your chestnut Cream with some mascarpone and that’s your filling. You heat some butter and milk together, add in chocolate and pour that over your filled pastry shells. You let them cool and serve. It really was just that easy. Well, if you’ve got all the stuff on hand that is.

For some reason my choux didn’t puff. Maybe my batter was too wet? Maybe my eggs were too big (I used 2 medium and 2 jumbo – trying to balance out the recipe’s requested 4 large). I dunno. C tasted them and he thought they tasted just fine, so on we proceeded. Oh, the babies loved the plain choux too. Kept demanding More Cracker!! They’re so cute. When they’re not screaming.

Oh, and the recipe says it makes 24 mini eclairs. Mine came out to something like 42. Not quite sure. I stopped counting at the end of the 2nd pan….

So even though I’m weighing in at Weight Watchers tomorrow, after dinner I poured myself a homemade Bailey’s (see this post for the recipe) and ate TWO of the mini eclairs. Then, as I was packing up all the other eclairs for C to take into class tomorrow, I ate one more teeny tiny little eclair. That’s when C gave me the stink eye.

*grin*

Not too sweet – just great!

Chestnut Cream Eclairs  by Nisrine of Dinner and Dreams

Printable Recipe HERE

Ingredients:

Pâte à Choux

1 cup water

1 stick unsalted Butter

2 teaspoons Sugar

½ teaspoon Salt

1 ½ cups all-purpose Flour

4 large Eggs **I used 2 medium & 2 jumbo

Chestnut Mascarpone Filling

¾ cup Chestnut spread (crème de marrons)

2/3 cup Mascarpone

Chocolate Glaze

4 Tablespoons Butter

2 Tablespoons Milk

2 ounces Semisweet Chocolate, chopped

How To:

1- Oven to 350º. Butter a large baking sheet. **I shpritzed with some Baking Spray.

The Pâte à Choux

1- Bring the water, butter, sugar and salt to a boil in a medium saucepan. Stir well. Lower the heat.

2- Stir in the flour and keep stirring constantly with a wooden spoon until you obtain a thick mass of dough that detaches from the sides of the pan. Transfer to the bowl of a stand mixer and let cool 5 minutes.

3- With the paddle attachment on, add the eggs, one at a time, and work the dough until it looks like thick, sticky cake batter. This should take 2 to 3 minutes.

4- Transfer the dough to a pastry bag or Ziploc bag and pipe 2-inch rounds or logs onto the prepared pan, leaving 2 inches between puffs.

5- Bake the puffs 25 to 35 minutes, or until they are golden and sound hollow when tapped or shaken. The best way may be to test taste one to make sure it is not dough-ey in the middle. **Again, for whatever reason, my puffs didn’t, well, puff. Ahh well.

6- Let the puffs cool to room temperature on a rack before filling them.

The Filling

1- To make the filling, simply stir the chestnut spread and mascarpone well in a medium bowl until you obtain a light brown cream.

2- Cut the puffs in half lengthwise using a serrated knife. Fill one half with the filling using a spoon. Place the other half on top.

The Glaze

1- To make the glaze, heat up the butter and milk over medium heat in a small saucepan until melted. Reduce heat to low, add the chopped chocolate and whisk until melted. Remove from heat.

2- Glaze the top half of the puffs with the chocolate glaze. Refrigerate for 1 hour before serving.

HAD to give away – otherwise I would eat these AAAAAAALLLLL

You should NOT be like me. Only eat one. That’s it. JUST ONE.