Friday, April 15, 2011

French Fridays with Dorie: Champagne, with Espresso-Frangelico Éclairs

This will be short and sweet, like my Espresso-Frangelico Eclairs with Bittersweet Chocolate Ganache.


Sure, they're cute now, but you should have seen the first round...flat as pancakes. Very sad. I suspect I had oven issues; too much heat escaped when I attempted to rotate the baking sheets, and then the oven wasn't hot enough and/or I didn't allow the eclairs to cook long enough. If it had been any other night, I would have dumped them in the trash and relaxed the remainder of the evening.

I was determined to go for round two and get them right, because these eclairs needed to be in a limo full of women at 9:30 a.m. the following morning, celebrating Pammy's birthday. What better to go with Champagne at that time of the morning?

After a brief sushi and sake break at the local sushi bar, I came home and mastered the second batch. I looked at Barefoot Contessa's recipe and compared it with Dorie's, made a few adaptations, piped the pâte à choux on one baking sheet, left the oven door closed throughout the baking, and increased the oven temperature and baking time just slightly.


Dorie's traditional recipe is for Vanilla Eclairs, filled with vanilla pastry cream, and glazed with confectioners' sugar, milk and a squeeze of lemon juice. She also offers variations for coffee/espresso and chocolate pastry creams, and chocolate ganache. To booze it up, which was a no-brainer for this crowd, it was easy to add a few tablespoons of Frangelico liqueur to the espresso pastry cream.  The chocolate ganache was another must do!

Happy girls!


French Fridays with Dorie is an online cooking group dedicated to Dorie Greenspan‘s newest book, Around My French Table: More Than 300 Recipes from My Home to Yours. As members of the group, we have purchased the cookbook and cook along as much as we can. There is a new recipe each week, and we post about that recipe on Friday. We are asked to refrain from posting the actual recipes on our blog. The book is filled with stunning photography, and personal stories about each recipe, which makes it that much more intriguing.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

What great morning birthday treats! You're an awesome friend! I like the sweep of ganache on your profiteroles.

Cher Rockwell said...

Hey - sounds like breakfast food to me! Hope you had a great time -with those in hand, how could you not?

Betsy said...

Your friends were really lucky you brought the coffee this morning. I'll bet your eclairs went perfectly with champagne.

Unknown said...

Tonight is my first visit to NiMS, but it won't be my last! Champagne, girlfriends, and chocolate-coffee on Sunday mornings make for a wonderful life!

Adriana said...

You had me at the link preview, Denisse ("Espresso-Frangelico Eclairs go wonderfully with Champagne at 10:00 a.m.!"). Hee! What a great combination.

bunkycooks said...

I always use Ina's recipe and it works like a champ (unless I am in NC and then I have altitude). You gals appear to be having waay to much fun! :) What a way to start the day

Carmen said...

Cheers, to another elegant French recipe! Happy Birthday to Pammy!

Liz That Skinny Chick Can Bake said...

What fabulous additions to your eclairs...and the second time was the charm...they're just perfect! What a fun treat for your friends :)

Anonymous said...

Beautiful eclairs! Love the expresso-frangelico combination. Yummy!

Mika said...

Delicioso! Un abrazo!