Comfort Food

It is time to tempt the palette on a beautiful Monday morning - I slept with the windows open last night and woke up in the middle of the night feeling like fall is almost here. There was a beautiful chill in the night air - it made me want to take a walk at 3 am - instead I decided to snuggle under the covers and just enjoy the fall night-time feeling.

I have been diligently working on projects, and gathering the words and photos for posts, and in the meantime I have decided to share with you my spur of the moment treat from last night. I didn't think about taking photos of the process until after I was filling my beautiful babies, so I only have a finished product photo. Yum!

I made éclairs and I am including my recipe for you wonderful readers - (it is so simple! just time consuming)

Start by making the shells:
for this you need to preheat the oven to 400 degrees

In a small pot on the stove - heat 1 cup of water and a 1/2 cup a butter till the butter is melted and water is just beginning to boil. Add in 1 cup of flour - Mix and remove from heat - should form a somewhat solid ball while mixing.

At this point add 4 eggs, one at a time. (add an egg, mix until fully blended add the next one)

Spoon onto a baking sheet and cook for anywhere from 25 - 50 minutes depending on your oven. My old oven it would be done around 40- 45 minutes. My new convection oven cooks them in 25 min. (I burned 3 batches before I figured this out)

Pull them out and let them cool on a wire rack - Slice them open, pull out with a fork and gooey-ness still inside and set aside until you are ready to fill them.

For the filling:

I cheat and use lots of pre-made products - anyway beat together 2 (3oz) boxes of instant French Vanilla Pudding with 2 1/4 cups of Milk - then add in 1 (8oz) tub of cool whip. Blend together until thick - I then use a Ziploc bag, fill it full of the filling and cut a corner off and fill the pastry shells - recover the shells and spread on some prepared chocolate frosting to finish them off - Yummy! Yummy!

You will have leftover filling - it is yummy to just eat by itself - I always do -

Keep refrigerated and enjoy!

~bleumoon