Baking Bouchon - Recipe 33: Dulce de Leche Eclairs

These eclairs are freakin' out of control.  There's a ton going on in them so here's the low down on what they've got.

1. Eclair Shell
2. Dulce de Leche
3. Diplomat Cream
4. Candied Pecans
5. Carmelia Rectangles

That is a lot of stuff!!!

I'm not even going to talk about the eclair shells.  I've already discussed them twice so that horse is dead and I refuse to beat it.  You can check out the previous posts here and here.
Don't get grumpy about it, all you have to do is click the link.  Sheesh!


I am going to talk about Dulce de Leche because making this stuff blew my mind.

Dulce de leche is like caramel cream and it's crazy delicious.  You can buy it already made in stores, which I've done, but I've never made it myself and the process is creepily easy.

You basically take an up-opened can of sweetened condensed milk, put it in a pot full of water, boil it for 4 hours and you've got dulce de leche. I don't know how this works but it does.  I'm sure it has something to do with science.   Who figures this crap out?  The one thing you HAVE to do is make sure that the can is always completed covered in water because if it's not it can explode.  That sounds bad, so don't do that.

Next up on the agenda is diplomat cream.  Diplomat cream is essentially pastry cream that is lightened up with whipped cream.

This is the third time I've made the pastry cream recipe in this cookbook and I finally managed not to overcook it.  FINALLY!  Basically when the recipe says "Once you see bubbles breaking the surface, cook for about 5 minutes longer" it means "Once you see bubbles break the surface, stop cooking it immediately."  That's the same right?


Combining pastry cream with whipped cream makes rainbows, singing angels, unicorns, genies, puppies, leprechauns with pots of gold and anything else that is wonderful and amazing.

This stuff is what I wanted pastry cream to be the first time I made it.  It's SO good.  It's rich and sweet and creamy and fluffy.

I want to sit down with a giant spoon and a bowl of it.  The recipe made quite a bit so I thought I'd have a lot leftover that I could curl up with but I actually used it all in the eclairs.  Bummer.

The fourth component of the dulce de leche eclairs came with an easy, solid recipe... candied pecans.

The pecans get toasted in the oven while you melt water and sugar together on the stove.  Once the sugar is melted and the pecans are hot, they get stirred together until the pecans have a white, crystallized appearance.  It's pretty easy and they taste (and look) really good.  I actually think these would make a nice little hostess gift if you packaged them in a cute little bag.  I need to remember that.

The last, but not least, part of these eclairs are the Carmelia rectangles.  Carmelia is caramel flavored chocolate.  It's different because, unlike most caramel flavored chocolate, it's not mixed with carmelized sugar, but with actual caramel that has milk and butter in it.  This makes the chocolate crazy creamy.  (Yes, I looked that up on the Internet... I don't actually know anything myself)  I had to hide it from myself so I didn't eat it all.  I used Valrhona brand and it's probably some of the best chocolate I've ever had.

The chocolate gets melted and spread out super thin, then once it's set it is cut into rectangles that are used to garnish the eclairs.

Ok - we've got a ton of crap lined up to put on these eclairs so it's time to assemble.  You start by slicing the top third of the eclair off.  The dulce de leche goes on first and is topped with heaven diplomat cream, candied pecans, more creamy gold diplomat cream, then the carmelia chocolate rectangle.  Thomas instructs you to throw away the top part of the eclair that got chopped off but I put it back on like a little sandwich which made the eclair easier to eat.

Usually I'm disappointed by baked goods that have so many components and take so much time to make.  The expectations are just too high.  These are an exception.  It's absolutely one of my favorite recipes from this cookbook so far.  I'm 99.9% sure it has to do with the diplomat cream but I can't be sure.

Julie

BTW - I haven't mentioned in a while that if you want any of the Baking Bouchon recipes, just let me know.  I'm not going to post them on the blog but I'm happy to share them with you individually.