Sunday 10th September 2017
This week my friends and I went for a little picnic at Hever Castle. Except it wasn’t that small a picnic, even though there were 3 of us. I put the picnic together and it included some of the staples such as sausage rolls, cheese straws, sandwiches, crisps, cocktail sausages as well as some popcorn, some biscuits and pizza. It was such a good picnic but we all definitely ate too much, we thought that we would be rolling home!
Hever is an absolutely beautiful place, and even though it was cloudy the day we went, it made parts of it even more beautiful! It was also quite quiet as the summer holidays were over (well at least those for school children, I don’t start back at uni yet). Not as quiet as I thought, but quiet enough that everyone had enough space. My favourite part from the whole day was when a dragonfly landed near us and one of my friends screamed and told it to go away. It was pretty entertaining to say the least.
Blackberry season is still here, and if any of you know me, then you know that I absolutely love blackberry season. I mean it is free food after all, and it tastes great. I know you can buy blackberries in the supermarket but they just aren’t the same as good old British blackberries picked off of the bush yourself. When I was younger, I always adopted the one for me, one for the pot technique. Well there had to be an upside to getting pricked by brambles.
Last year I made these amazing blackberry brownies with my blackberry haul, except this year I wanted to try something slightly different. Blackberry and lime appeared everywhere so I decided to give it a go myself, but with these delicious, not so little eclairs. And oh my gosh guys, these are absolutely amazing! The filling is so fresh and perfectly balanced and I could go on about these for hours. My whole family seemed to love these, with my sister eating most of one batch in a day!
Eclairs can seem quite scary to make, and it has taken me a little while to get it right but it all boils down to choux pastry making being a science. The pastry rises so much because of the high water content, so getting the proportion exact will ensure that the pastry rises and then stays risen. Also, don’t open the door whilst they are baking. Do not do it. At all. Otherwise the pastry will collapse back down, which is pretty useless.
These are bet eaten the day that they are made. They will however keep in a container in the fridge for a few days.
Enjoy and don’t forget to tag your photos with #sarahjaneskitchen so that I can see them!
Ingredients:
For the choux pastry:
60g Strong Bread Flour
50g Butter
150ml Water
2 Eggs
1 Tsp Sugar
For the blackberry coulis:
300g Blackberries
50g Caster Sugar
For the Blackberry and Lime Cream:
300ml Double Cream
½ of the Blackberry Coulis
Zest from 1/3 of a Lime
For the Icing:
150g Icing Sugar
5 Tbsp Blackberry Coulis
Also Needed:
2 piping bags
Method:
Blackberry Coulis:
- Put the blackberries and the sugar in a saucepan and heat on a medium heat until the blackberries have broken down and the juice has been released
- Mash the blackberries up with a potato masher before passing the contents through a sieve, using the back of a spoon to help extract all the juice.
- Set aside or put in the fridge/freeze for later use
Choux Pastry:
- Preheat the oven to 200°C Fan/Gas Mark 7 and line a sheet with some parchment paper. Sprinkle the parchment paper with some water and set aside for later (this helps the pastry rise)
- Sieve the flour onto a sheet of parchment paper and set aside
- Melt the butter and the water together in a saucepan over a medium heat. Turn the heat off when the water starts to boil and the butter has melted. Add in the flour and beat together until a thick paste has formed that comes away from the sides of the pan.
- Beat in the eggs one at a time, making sure that the first is fully combined before adding the second. Beat the mixture until it is a smooth, glossy paste.
- Spoon the mixture into a piping bag, cut off the end and pipe the mixture in straight lines about 3 inches long (or into a tray if you are using an éclair pan).
- Bake the eclairs for 10 minutes at 200°C Fan before turning the oven down to 180°C/Gas Mark 6 and bake for another 16-18 minutes.
- Remove the eclairs from the oven and poke 2 large-ish holes in the bottom of the eclairs to allow steam out and allow to cool (the holes should be big enough for the piping bag to fit in and pipe the cream in)
- Place the cream and half of the made blackberry coulis into a bowl, along with the lemon zest and whip the cream until it forms soft peaks. Once soft peaks have formed, spoon the cream into the second piping bag, cutting off the tip of the piping bag, before piping the cream into each hole, filling the éclair with cream.
- Make up the icing using the icing sugar and the blackberry coulis. Add in one tablespoon of the coulis at a time, mixing after each addition, until a thick glossy icing has formed.
- Dip the tops of the eclairs into the icing and then set aside to dry.