Saturday, 6 October 2007

Pierre Herme Eclares



Not long ago I ordered number of cooking books as a very late graduation gift for myself - I needed a reason to justify the splurge-, and to me the highlight of the package was the amazing chocolate desserts book by Pierre Hermé; just flipping through the book and looking at the pictures is satisfying as eating chocolate. It didn't take long until I tried a recipe, and since I'm a big tart-lover I went for the nutella tart, it was a treat from me and my sister since she loves nutella so much, and what can I say it was yummilicous and also easy to do, the result was sensational, a light biscuit layer, thin layer of nutella and the best melt in your mouth ganache, and it looked amazing, it was just perfect -too bad I didn't take pictures-. One day I was invited for a dinner/ftoor in my uncle's house and I thought this tart will be perfect to take with me, little I knew that abit-low quality chocolate will give me some hard time, actually it was a nightmare, the ganache spilt while in the oven and I was in despair, and a thick layer of shredded coconut saved the day.


And because there is no Pierre Hermé pastry shop where I live, and I wanted to eat good eclairs, not that cerme-filled ribber found in the pastry shop I know covered with an awful dark stuff they call chocolate , the challenge was to make at-least-edible eclairs. In my life I tried to make the choux pastry three times, and it seemes that I made a major progress since my first eclairs were flat as a pancake; but, many years passed since then and I'm stronger in the arm and have more Patience. The recipe was straight-forward and easy to follow, and Mr.Hermé gives the steps in details so there are no "what-to-do-now" moments, every thing went smoothly and the my smile grew as I saw the eclairs puff and rise. So, the eclairs came out perfect from the oven, but because I started cooking on impulse I didn't make sure what kind of chocolate I had, and it was too late when I discovered that I had a very-sweet milk chocolate, but I had to do the chocolate glaze anyways. The result was OK, not perfect, but it put a smile on my family's faces; to me that's good enough. One thing I know for sure, next time I have some of my Friends around I'll make eclairs.
~Mai
Note: the picture isn't mine , as you know (or don't) I don't own a good camera, but I'll consider since I'm thinking of taking food blogging seriously.

1 comment:

amaikoe said...

majour droolage ;;Q;;
OMG it sounds awesome XD doesnt it amaze you how chocolate could get into a food and only makes it better? *v*
i hope you had fun making eclairs ( itried once, but baka me made them right before fajr athan so by the time the next day ftoor came, it was already tasteless and empty on the inside...) i dunno if it should be that way but as you said, YOU GAIN EXP AS YOU PROGRESS XD

take good pictures *3* i think you take movie and food blogging seriously enough to buy a good camera!