New School of Cooking - Pro Baking 1 - Class 3: Soufflés, Pate a Choux Eclairs and Pastry Cream

I'm taking the Pro Baking 1 series at the New School of Cooking in Culver City (Los Angeles) this fall/winter. For Class 3, it was all about the Soufflés, Pate a Choux and Pastry Cream.

I just love how a relatively easy dough, the Pate a Choix, can magically becomes eclairs and cream puffs. Awesome! Here, I made the dough, put it in a pastry bag (the toughest part! :), and piped out several logs. They baked in the oven until brown from the top to bottom and cooled.

We filled our eclairs with vanilla pastry cream (be sure to wipe off any excess). We made Chocolate Pudding last week, and it was a similar process. Thou shall not be afraid of the pastry cream anymore! :)

Half the eclairs were covered with a SHINY (think Earl Scheib car paint!) chocolate glaze (includes corn syrup and cocoa), and the other half with a chocolate ganache. I like the ganache, but the shiny glaze would also be good on a donut.

Left: Chocolate ganache; Right: Chocolate glaze

These were pretty filled...some of my other ones were "lightly" filled. Need to work on squirting enough filling in each one!

We also made a chocolate souffle. I completely messed up the "sandy roux" the first time...I had to make it again! I also learned that I probably completely overbeat my eggs! We beat 3 egg whites by hand (for two ramekins). When the instructor said, "most people overbeat their eggs..." and showed us how much to whip them during the demo. My classmate Jennie and I looked and each other and said, OMG. I overbeat!

Next week: Pies. Oh dear. Now that I'm older, I don't think monsters are under my bed. I think pie crusts are down there. They frighten me terribly. I have a lot of learn in this class! I'll let you know how it goes! ;)

I'm going to try to make cream puffs tonight for a party with vanilla and green tea pastry cream. Wish me luck! I'll post about it later!

Have a great weekend! To my East Coast friends...sorry you are being pelted by a snow storm. Um, it's going to be close to 80 degrees today in Los Angeles...if I didn't have to go to work, I'd walk to the beach. (Dear Racheal, Come back!!!)

Recaps of the New School of Cooking, Pro Baking 1 course:
Baking Therapy
Class 1: Quick Breads
Class 2: Custards