JasmineRichelleBakes: August 2017

I was just kind of sitting around after making dinner at 5:00pm and then I thought to myself I really want a pretzel. I wanted a yummy soft pretzel, you know you can't find soft pretzels everywhere. I have fond memories of being a mall rat and buying those little cinnamon pretzel nuggets from the food court as I waited to go into Hot Topic or something. This was my first time ever attempting to bake pretzels but they were actually pretty simple. I will definitely bake these again in the future, and it takes less time to make these than let's say eclairs. Baking these takes about 15 minutes and the longest time it took was about an hour to proof the dough. So here's how they turned out, I did make your traditional salted soft pretzels and then two cinnamon sugar soft pretzels as well as some cinnamon sugar soft pretzel nuggets.

delicious pretzels

So Here's what you will need

Soft Pretzels

4 1/2 cups of Flour
1 tablespoon of Sugar
1 tablespoon of Salt
2 tablespoons of Oil
1 envelope of fast active dry yeast
2/3 cup of Baking Soda
1 1/2 of warm Water
2 eggs beaten
water for boiling
coarse salt for topping
cinnamon + sugar for topping

all the ingredients for the pretzel dough

First start by mixing the warm water, salt, and sugar together in a bowl.

add the sugar + salt into the water

Now add in your yeast and let it sit for at least 5 minutes so your yeast can bloom. ***make sure your water is warm not super hot.... If it's too hot it will kill your yeast***

pour in the envelope of yeast

let the yeast bloom for 5 minutes

this is what it looks like after it blooms

Now add this to your flour

add in your 2 tablespoons of oil

Mix till a dough forms. I just mixed it with my hands which is super fun.

roll it into a big ball of dough

Now take 1 tablespoon of oil and grease the bowl.

now place the dough in the bowl and cover with cling wrap.

Let the dough proof for about one hour.

preheat your oven to 450F

Take your dough out and cut it into 8 pieces.

Now roll each piece into a rope and twist into your traditional pretzel shape.

Ok this was the first time making a pretzel shape

Keep doing that until you use all your dough. I also cut some dough into little nuggets.

Now pour the baking soda into a pot of water and boil.

when you pour in the baking soda it will fizz up, science right?

When the water+baking soda comes to a boil and place one pretzel in the water and boil 30 seconds on each side.

boil it for 30 seconds on each side

Place on a silicon baking sheet, or parchement paper

after being boiled

Now brush the beaten egg on each pretzel

brush on the egg wash

after brushing on the egg

add the coarse salt all over your pretzel (don't put it on the ones you are reserveing for cinnamon sugar)

I didn't even use all of this salt, This is some kind of coarse mediterranean sea salt (it's pretty yummy)

Now bake at 400F for about 10-15 minutes until brown (you know what pretzels look like)

Look how brown they are (thanks eggs)

Take them out of the oven and place them on a cooling rack

For the first time twisting up pretzels I think they look great

As far as the cinnamon sugar nuggets and pretzels and I melted butter and tossed them in the cinnamon sugar

Cinnamon+ Sugar

Little cinnamon sugar pretzel nuggets

ok I went a little crazy with the butter and cinnamon and sugar that the holes on the pretzel got filled.

here are the regular pretzel ones

Ready for some mustard

look at that salt ya'll

you can pretend you are at a ball game

ready for game days.....

They taste pretty yummy, and they are great with mustard.

So basically everyone was getting sick of me baking macarons, I have quite a few dozen in the freezer as I type this (and I will post the galaxy macarons in a future post). I wanted to try something else and for some reason I just kept thinking about trying to make eclairs. I have been watching quite a few episodes of The Great British Bake Off, and I may have seen the contestants bake eclairs and I thought to myself that those look delicious. It did take me about 4 hours between making the cream filling, cooling that, making the pate a choux dough, baking that, then filling them, topping them, and finally letting them cool in the fridge. The kitchen was a complete mess, but I think they were worth it. I decided to go with a coffee flavored cream and I think it has the right kick, it cuts down on the sweetness. With the chocolate ganache top it gives the eclair a mocha taste. The trickiest part was filling the eclair with cream, which was messy for me, but the next time I make these ( which won't be for a while) I believe they will come out better.

Coffee Eclairs

They taste pretty great and yeah these aren't perfect, they are all pipped different sizes but for my first try I think they came out pretty great. The cool thing about making these are that you don't need any fancy equipment, no stand mixers, just a good old fashion whisk, and wooden spoon.

here's what you will need

Eclair dough (pate a choux)

250ml of water (1 cup + 2 tsps)
70g of butter (5 tbs)
150g of flour (1 cup)
4 eggs
pinch of salt

Eclair Cream

350ml of milk (1 1/2 cup)
30g of corn starch (3 3/4 Tbs)
50g of sugar (1/4 cup sugar)
75g of room temperature butter (1/3 cup)
50g of sugar (1/4 cup sugar)
200ml of heavy whipping cream (3/4 cup + 2 Tbs)
1 Tsp of vanilla
3 Tbs of instant coffee

Chocolate Glaze

150 grams chocolate chips (3/4 cups)
125 grams heavy whipping cream (1/2 cup plus 2 teaspoons)

First for the dough

Combine water with salt in a small/medium pot and bring to a boil

there's a pinch of salt in there

Add butter and bring to a boil one more time.

Add the flour and whisk vigorously until no lumps remain. (I could not take a picture and vigorously mix at the same time)

Reduce the heat to minimal and keep whisking until the mixture thickens, about 1 minute. It should look like this.

arm work out

Off the heat and adding one egg at a time, keep whisking the mixture until all eggs are incorporated and the batter is of the smooth consistency.

one egg at a time, also just use a wooden spoon here.

nice and smooth

It's easier to use a wooden spoon after the eggs are incorporated to make sure your dough is smooth.
This dough will be stiff, yet pipe able.

Preheat the oven to 400 F.

Line a sheet pan with parchment paper, or a silicon mat.

Using a pastry bag fitted with a large plain tip, pipe fat lengths of dough (about ¾ - 1 inch thick and 4 inches long) onto the lined baking sheet, leaving 1 inch of space between them.

getting ready to bake

Bake for 15 minutes at 400 F.

Without opening the oven door, reduce the temperature to 340 F and bake for another 15-20 minutes until eclairs are light golden brown.

Remove from the oven and cool on the wire rack.

*******Important: - Don't open the oven while baking.********

For The Coffee Cream

First dissolve your cornstarch in 3-4 tablespoons of milk. (I used chocolate milk)

mix the cornstarch until smooth

Bring the remaining milk to a simmer, add 50 grams of sugar + instant coffee.

I wanted to use chocolate milk, you can use regular

When the milk starts to boil, add a dissolved cornstarch and whisk until no lumps remain.

Keep whisking and work fast, this mixture will become thick like a pudding and you don't want it to scorch. When it reaches a pudding consistency remove from the heat and cool.

it looks like pudding and smells really nice.

Using an electric mixer, beat the butter with the remaining 50 grams of sugar and vanilla extract until the mixture turns almost white.

Combine the butter with the milk and cornstarch mixture. Mix well. Set aside.

I then take this mixture and run in through a fine mesh sieve to ensure I have a smooth cream.

there were a lot of chunky bits, I don't know if thats milk that stuck to the bottom, I recommend straining the cream

smooth no chunky bits

In a large bowl and using the electric mixer, beat the heavy whipping cream until soft peaks form.

soft peaks are when the little peak dips down like a bird's beak

Fold whipped cream into the butter and milk cream.

mix well

this is so nice and light

Using the tip of a small knife, cut 3 small Xs along the top of each pastry. Using a small tip (I used #32 Wilton tip), pipe the pastry cream into the shells through each opening.

before you dip these take a knife and scrap the excess cream off

For the chocolate glaze:

Melt the chocolate chips and heavy whipping cream in a medium saucepan set over a pot with about 1 inch of boiling water. Whisk until the mixture is nice and smooth.

Alternatively, you can heat chocolate with a cream in a microwave for about 30 seconds and whisk until smooth.

Or you can boil the cream in a pot and pour that over chocolate chips and give them a stir.

nice shiny chocolate ganache

Dip the top of each eclair into the chocolate glaze and set aside to allow the glaze to harden.

coffee eclair goodness

Enjoy!

You can also top these with different things. I topped some with crushed hazelnuts, some with crushed pistachios, and some with leftover condensed milk butter cream and a dusting of coffee powder.

I then placed them in my fridge for the ganache to harden.