Hey everyone! Are you happy? Sitting there, eating your toast? Or your bowl of oatmeal? Or just a big ol’ pizza, with all that bread… and… unnngghhh…
So, right now I’m on some kind of insane super-restrictive (but thankfully also super-short-lived) eating plan which limits me to basically zero carbs , apart from those in whole vegetables (for those of you nerds into macro splits, it’s 10/30/60 carbs/protein/fat, and that 10% is just under 37g. A day. For reals.) – but that isn’t going to stop me from BAKING STUFF I TOTALLY CANNOT EAT . And so I figured, if I’m going to do it, I should damn well do it proper-like, and so I present to you: COFFEE. CHOCOLATE. ECLAIRS. Like, omg , right?
So let’s GET OUR CHOUXS ON
Method
For the pastry buns
Preheat the oven to 180°c fan (200°c no fan, 400°f)
Sift 35 g plain white flour into a bowl and set aside. Pour water into a small pan (this small milk pan is ideal) and put over a low heat. Cube 25 g unsalted butter, softened and add to the pan, along with 1 pinch salt and stir constantly until the butter has melted. Make sure that the water doesn’t start to simmer or boil.
Once all the butter has melted, turn up the heat to medium until the mixture starts to simmer, then pour in the bowl of sifted flour, then remove the pan from the heat and start to mix with a spoon. You’ll need to mix fast , combining everything until it turns smooth – this should take at least 1-2 minutes of mixing. Turn the hob back down to a low heat and put the pan over it, stirring your dough in the pan constantly for another couple of minutes until it easily pulls away from the sides and comes together in a smooth ball of dough.
Remove the dough a place in a small ceramic bowl to cool down. It will cool down a lot quicker if you spread the dough reasonably thin up the sides of the bowl. Now crack 1 medium egg(s) into a small bowl or ramekin and whisk briefly. Once the dough has cooled down to a little warmer than room temperature, add add 1 pinch stevia and then add half the beaten egg mixture in with the dough and mix with an electric hand mixer (trust me, you’ll have a MUCH easier time than trying to do it by hand). Add a little more of the egg at a time and beat well until the dough is thick & sticky, but make sure that it’s not too wet.
Using a metal spoon, scoop the dough into a piping bag (You can get disposable ones from any decent store with a cookery section, or get the exact same ones as me ). Pipe lines approximately 10cm/4″ onto a baking tray lined with baking/parchment paper. How many you can pipe out depends on how thick you make them; mine were pretty thick – about the same as a sausage – so I only managed three. You can get away with piping them pretty thin and still get a decent puff, though, so you may be able to get 4 out.
Place your baking tray in the oven, close the door and bake for 15 minutes. Do not open the door during this initial bake! You want them to rise, and any sudden change in the temperature (caused by opening the door for a peek) could cause them to collapse. After 15 minutes, quickly (but gently) open the oven door to let out any steam, then close it again (but don’t slam it!) and turn the oven down to 160°c fan (180°c no fan, 350°f) and leave for at least another 15 minutes. Check after this time, and if they look crisp and golden, you’re good (if not, leave them for another 2-5 minutes) – remove them from the oven and using a skewer or toothpick, poke a small hole in one end. You should only need to open it up, as the pastry itself should be pretty much hollow. Now place them back in the oven for another 5 minutes.
Once done, remove from the oven and place immediately on a wire rack to cool, making sure that they are completely dry and there’s no soggy dough. You will want to leave them for at least 20-30 minutes until they are ‘cold’ (i.e. room temperature) – trying to add the filling while they;re still warm will cause you a world of problems.
For the crème pâtissière
Mix a little double cream with the 2 tsps custard powder to make a paste, then add this into a bowl with 1 egg yolk(s) , 3 tsps xylitol , 1 pinch stevia , mixing thoroughly and adding 4 tsps double cream 1 teaspoon at a time until the mixture is thick and smooth. Melt 15 g sugar-free dark chocolate (melted) in a microwave-safe dish until it is smooth, then scoop into the mixture with a silicon spatula. You may find that, if the cream is cold, some of the chocolate may turn to lumps – don’t worry about this too much, as we’re going to be heating it up anyway.
Make your {espresso} with 2 tsp of espresso/instant coffee grounds and 100ml of very hot water, mixing to make sure all the coffee is dissolved, then pour carefully into your custard mixture, stirring all the while. Once mixed, pour into a small milk pan and set over a low heat and add 25 g butter , in small cubes stirring constantly until it’s melted. Turn the heat up slightly to a low-medium heat while still stirring – you should find that the mixture starts to thicken very quickly. Once your mixture thick and has a nice smooth consistency, remove from the heat and transfer to a cool bowl. Note if the mixture gets overheated, you may see the oil start to separate and it looks almost curdled. Don’t panic! You can fix this by mixing a little custard powder with cream and then adding that to the pan, stirring furiously – after a minute or so you should see it smooth out again.
Leave the custard mixture to cool for a minute, then spoon into one of those piping bags, cutting a small opening. Place the bag against the hole you created in each of your buns and pipe in your mixture, trying not to overfill the bun.
For the topping
Create a bain marie with a pan and a glass bowl that can rest over that pan (so, the diameter of the bowl should be larger than that of the pan). You want to ensure there’s at least a couple of inches of space between the bottom of the bowl and the bottom of the pan. Make sure your bowl is completely clean & dry – absolutely no water or moisture on the inside. Boil some water and pour into the bottom of the pan, placing it over a low heat so that it simmers gently, then rest your bowl over the top, making sure the bottom of the bowl doesn’t touch the water.
Measure out 50 g sugar-free dark chocolate and chop finely, then add to the bowl and immediately begin stirring with a metal spoon or knife. You should find that the finely-chopped chocolate starts to melt almost immediately. Continue stirring until there are no more solid lumps, then immediately remove the bowl from the pan.
Using a teaspoon, carefully drizzle the melted chocolate over each bun in turn, covering the top half in dark chocolate. Set the buns aside and leave to cool for at least an hour.
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And there you have it – you just made choux pastry and crème pâtissière – like some kind of motherflipping pastry wizard! And now you can relax, safe in the knowledge that whatever happens, you have eclairs.
Nutritional Info
Total Carbohydrates
16.6g
*Typical values per serving.
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