Eclairs
I never pulled an all-nighter in college.
First of all, I’m semi-useless intellectually after 4 pm on a good day. But more importantly, I am a planner by nature. The prospect of leaving a project so big to so late that it will require HOURS in the library after dark fills me with dread. An all-nighter is a prison of your own design. It’s masochistic if you think about it. No thank you.
Eclairs, on the other hand, really scratch my organizational itch. Mise en place (already my favorite thing) really shines here, and it works on two levels. On a broad, conceptual level eclairs are really about assembly. You pipe pastry cream into puffs and dip them in ganache. So you obviously need all those components ready ahead of time. Mise en place level one.
Level two is the real beauty. Each component of an eclair benefits - nay, depends upon - mise en place. Let me be clear - you should always mise en place. But there are some recipes where you can get away with it. Not here. Take the ganache, for instance. You have to have the chocolate chopped so that it’s on hand during the narrow window when the milk scalds. Same with the pastry cream. Your egg mixture had better have reported for duty by scalding hour or your milk could burn while you scramble (pun intended).
The pâte à choux is the highest stakes of all. Uniquely, it’s a dough that starts off in a saucepan but finishes in the mixer. That transfer adds an element of chaos if you’re not careful. Have your flour measured, your eggs cracked, and your equipment in place (the unsung hero of mise en place!) and instead of chaos you get coherence.
All the mise en place of level two begets the mise en place of level one. You reap (MIP1) what you sow (MIP2). MIP2 walked so MIP1 can run. What I’m saying is, eclairs are the Russian doll of mise en place.
So next time you have a hankering for eclairs or a college paper due....(professorial voice): come prepared.
P.s. - don’t even get me STARTED on group projects.
Recipe from Joanne Chang’s cookbook, Flour, with some additional tips and tricks from Erin Jeanne McDowell.