Daring Bakers' Chocolate Eclairs

This month's Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Tony at www.antoniotahhan.com and Meeta at www.whatsforlunchhoney.blogspot.com. Please check their websites for the Chocolate Eclair recipe.

Here is one of my finished eclairs. The kids said that they tasted great even though they didn't look very pretty. The comments were: "yummy" and "very chocolaty". Unfortunately, I did have some problems.

The dough was easy to make. I didn't have a pastry bag, so I used a plastic bag with the corner cut off. Here is the dough before it was baked.

I followed ALL the baking instructions. When I pulled this pan out of the oven, the dough started to collapse. I quickly put the second pan back into the oven to try to save them.

Here is the second pan. I baked these longer, but they still collapsed! What do you think? Were my "chubby fingers" too chubby (see the recipe if this doesn't make sense)? Even after a longer cooking time, they were still doughy in the middle. This is why I think I started out with too much dough. I guess I should have baked them longer even though they were getting very golden brown.

a collapsed puff

This is the chocolate pastry cream. It is delicious. The chocolate sauce is also yummy! Both are VERY chocolaty. If you are a chocoholic, you'll be happy!


Here is where my story takes an interesting turn. I created everything, assembled one eclair for a picture, and took my pictures. I went into our computer room to upload the pictures to my blog. I kept hearing the jingling of my dog's collar, but it didn't register. It was too late when it finally did. I walked into the kitchen to see my dog eating my baked puff doughs. He ate over half of them!

Guilty!