RECIPE: Mrs Plimmerton's Chocolate Eclairs (Chapter 2)

Since it's the holidays, and I'm sure there are plenty of cooks in the kitchen, here's another Rosabelle recipe to keep you busy...chocolate eclairs!

(I, Linda, remember going to my neighbour's house when I was little and being amazed by the spread she put out - eclairs included - just for a 'regular' afternoon tea! I used to come home and rave to my parents about how great the food was.)

Makes 18.

Ingredients:

75g butter, chopped

3/4 cup water

3/4 cup plain flour

pinch salt

4 eggs

icing sugar

cocoa powder

cream

peaches

Method:

Preheat oven to 240 degrees C.
Put butter and water into a pot and stir until butter is melted. (Don't take too long with this step - because you don't want too much water to evaporate.)
Bring to the boil and quickly add flour and salt.
Stir vigourously with a wooden spoon until a ball forms.
Beat in 3 of the eggs, one at a time (very important) with an electric mixer on low speed.
Beat the last egg in a separate bowl and add slowly to the mixture. You want to add just enough of this last egg so that the mixture is thick, velvety, and shiny - it should run off the back of a spoon like a curtain.
If you have a piping bag - great - use this to pipe out eighteen 10cm lengths (1.5cm wide) onto a tray lined with baking paper. (If you don't have a piping bag - use a good old spoon to try and make even lengths).
Put the tray in the oven. Bake for 5-10 mins (or until pastry has tripled in size).
Then, turn the oven down to 180 degrees C, bake for 10-20 minutes - until golden in colour and crisp.
In the last 5 mins, poke a hole in the side of each eclair - this should result in a crunchier texture. Bake for remaining 5 minutes. Turn oven off.
Take tray out of oven and cut eclairs in half. Put halves on wire racks and return to oven to dry out interior.
Once they've cooled, ice lids with chocolate or vanilla icing. Fill the bottoms with whipped cream and tinned peaches (dry peaches with paper towels first), and sandwich the halves together.