Lemon Meringue Eclairs

Whoa we are half way through with the February bakes. I feel like 2018 is going to be one of those years that will just fly by. Today's perfect pair is Lemon + Meringue. They work so well with each other. I love lemon but it does has the tendency to be rather tart at times. It needs it's friend Meringue to offset some of that tartness. I wanted to bake something that I hadn't in a while. I went with an eclair. I had only made them one other time last year and wanted to improve my eclair baking skills. I loved the way they turned out. I ended up changing my oven temps and I even adjusted the baking time. This led to a much crispier and more hollowed out eclair shell. Lemon anything will always be a favorite of mine, so these eclairs made me very happy. I had a much more pleasant experience because I made the lemon cream a day earlier. So remember you don't have to do everything in one day.

Lemon Meringue Eclair

I will definitely bake these again in the future.

Here's what you need

Pate a choux (eclair dough)

• 250ml of water (1 cup + 2 teaspoons)
• 70g  of butter (5 tablespoons)
• 150g of flour (1 cup)
• 4 eggs
• 2 tablespoons of sugar
• pinch of salt
• egg wash (1 egg + 1 tablespoon of water)

Lemon Cream

Lemon Curd

• 1/2 cup lemon juice
• 2 tablespoons of lemon zest 
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 whole eggs
• 2 egg yolks (save the egg whites for the meringue)
• 1 stick of butter (cut into pieces)

whipped cream

• 1 cup heavy cream
• 1/4 cup powdered sugar

Italian Meringue

• 2 egg whites
• 1/4 cup of sugar
• 1 cup of sugar
• 1/3 cup of water

First make some lemon curd or if you want to skip this step and use store bought go ahead. Here's how I make my lemon curd. How To make Lemon Curd

Once you make your Lemon Curd place it in the fridge to cool.

Whip up your whipped cream by using a stand mixer or hand mixer. Pour your heavy cream in a bowl and whip on high speed until soft peaks form and pour in your powdered sugar and whip until combine. Try not to over whip your cream.

In a large bowl take your cooled lemon curd and about 3/4 of your whipped cream and gently fold the two together. Once everything is combined place bowl in fridge until ready to fill eclairs.

Stop when your cream looks like this

chilled lemon curd

Lemon curd +Whipped cream = Lemon Cream

Now for the Eclair dough

preheat oven to 400F


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

the sugar and salt dissolved in the water

Add butter and bring to a boil one more time.

Butter

let all the butter melt and bring this to a boil

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.

keep stirring to cook out the flour

Remove mixture off the heat and add one egg at a time, keep whisking the mixture until all eggs are incorporated and the batter is a smooth consistency. (it's easier to use a wooden spoon....you will get an arm work out)

It will look a mess but keep stirring it will all come together

keep stirring until your arm falls off

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.

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.

Then gently brush each eclair with egg wash. I then took a fork and gently scraped the top of each eclair (this helps with an even bake and it makes them look cute)

your should get about 12  6 inch eclairs out of this but I made a couple too long and only ended up with 11 and two little cream puffs which is still cool.

ready for the oven

Place in 400F oven and bake for 15 minutes. Without opening the oven decrease temperature to 350F and bake for 25 minutes.

Remove eclairs from oven and place on cooling rack. Cool completely.

Nice and golden brown

I just took a piping tip and gently pressed  three small wholes into each eclair

starting at one end I filled each whole with the lemon cream mixture (when the mixture starts to come out of the whole stop filling it.)

all filled up

*if some cream come out just use a knife to scrap it off

place the filled eclairs back on the cooling racks

full of cream

I made a little lemon glaze and brushed on them to make them shiny and even more lemony

Time to make the Italian meringue

Place 1 cup of sugar and 1/3 cup water in a small pot on medium to high heat and cook with a candy or digital thermometer until 100C .

When sugar reaches 100 celceius begin whipping egg whites in a separate bowl.

when egg whites become frothy add in the 1/4 cup of sugar and whip until soft peaks form.

when soft peaks form sugar will reach 118 celceius remove from heat and slowly pour into egg whites.

Turn mixer on high and whip until bowl is cooled down so about 5-7 minutes.

Place cooled meringue in a piping bag with whatever pipping tip you have and pipe meringue over the top of each eclair ( I used a leaf tip)

they look so yummy

Using a kitchen torch slightly toast the meringue. If you don't have a kitchen torch you can place them back in the oven and toast them that way.

after the torch

close up of that yummy meringue

so perfect

Inside view

I also ended up making some with a blackberry glaze.

In a small pot place 1/2 cup of blackberries, 2 tablespoons of lemon juice, and 3 tablespoons of sugar over medium heat. Cook until blackberries become soft

remove from heat and use a sieve to smash blackberries with spoon to extract juice and remove seeds

Why do blacberries turn red when they are cooked

 Take two cups of powdered sugar and about 7 tablespoons of blackberry syrup and whisk until smooth

blackberry glaze

 Dip each eclair in glaze and sit on rack to set (about 5 minutes)

before glaze sets you can top with sprinkles or just leave them plain. I added candied lemon peel and meringue. Oh and a little gold luster dust.

look at how pretty these are

I tried to zoom in on the glitter

ready to serve

These were mega yummy and looked beautiful. Next weeks bake will definitely be Peanut Butter & Jelly inspired.

S'mores Macarons For The Win!

S'mores, S'mores, S'mores. When you think of summer,  you think of S'mores. I've always had fond memories of eating s'mores surrounded by a campfire. I mean I've actually only went camping once and that was my freshman year of college (black people do not go camping). I just remember all of my friends laughing and having a great time while eating S'mores. I am still amazed at how something on the cusp of being burnt can taste so amazing. Yummy marshmallows that are crunchy on the outside and gooey on the inside are so perfect. I want to know whose idea it was to put a marshmallow on a stick and place it in an open fire. Then taking that same toasty marshmallow and sandwich that between a piece of chocolate and two graham cracker halves was definitely before their time. Ok, yeah my mind was wondering for a minute, I've had so many wonderful s'mores flavored things that I decided to make a s'mores flavored macaron (I made my sister make a list of all the weird macaron flavors that she could think of and this was one of them). I ended up making a graham cracker flavored macaron shell, chocolate ganache filling, a marshmallow filling (that I ended up toasting with a kitchen torch) and then I melted a little chocolate for a drizzle on top. I mean they taste like the yummiest bite sized s'more.

S'mores Macarons

I feel like my macarons have been more time consuming because it've been making dual fillings. These took from start to finish about 3 hours (prep, fillings, actual macarons, shells resting, baking, cooling, filling, and then cleaning). The great thing is you can make the fillings a day or two ahead and thats one less thing you have to do.

Here's what you are going to need. If you've followed my previous macaron posts this is the same macaron recipe using the Italian meringue method so you will need a stand mixer. Also if you want to toast the marshmallow filling you will need a kitchen torch ( I bought mine a while ago on Amazon for about 15 bucks and I have a can of butane from Home Depot to refill for about 4 dollars). Also since we are using the Italian meringue method and making macarons need to be precise to bake well I would suggest using a food scale for accuracy.

S'mores Macarons

• 150g of powdered sugar
• 145g of almond flour/meal
• 5g of graham cracker crumbs
• 150g of granulated sugar
• 50g of water
• 120 g of room temperature egg whites separated into two bowls (60g each)
• 35 g of granulated sugar
• Crushed graham crackers (for garnish)

Chocolate Ganache

• 1 cup of semi sweet chocolate
• 2 cups heavy cream

Marshmallow cream

• 50g of water
• 150g of granulated sugar
• 60g of egg whites (thats basically the whites from two large eggs)
• 35 g of granulated sugar

First take your powdered sugar, almond meal and 5g of graham cracker crumbs and run that through a fine mesh sieve. Then take a whisk and mix all the ingredients after they have been sifted, then just set aside.

Take 60g of your room temperature egg whites and fold it into your dry ingredients. This is going to form a thick almond paste, after folding just set the almond mixture aside.

This is a also a great place to add in any food coloring, I added a few drops of warm brown gel food coloring to mimic the color of graham crackers (remember that when you add in the meringue the color will lighten a lot). 

Now take your other 60g of egg whites and place them in your stand mixer on medium until they start to get foamy.

When your egg whites get foamy add in the 35g of granulated sugar slowly and mix on medium to high speed until soft peaks form.

when you achieve soft peaks turn down the speed of your mixer and keep your egg whites beating on low speed (like 1-2 speed)

Now take your 150g of granulated sugar and 50g of water  and place it in a saucepan on your stove on medium heat.

Let this boil until the temperature on your thermometer hits 240F (soft ball on candy thermometer)

Carefully take your sugar syrup and pour it down the side of your stand mixer ( in a slow steady stream) while the egg whites are whipping.

Continue whipping this mixture on high speed until your bowl cools down and stiff peaks form so about 10-15 minutes you should have a very glossy, shiny merengue, flip the bowl over and it shouldn't move.

Now take 1/3rd of the egg whites and fold it into your almond paste

Now once your 1/3 meringue  and almond paste combine you can add all of the meringue and continue folding.

Keep folding until it runs off of spatula in a ribbon

Take your macaron batter and place in a large piping bag with a round tip attached.

On a parchment lined tray pipe out 1.5 inch circles, tap your tray on the counter top once finished piping. I then sprinkled crushed graham cracker crumbs on the top of each shell for garnish so they would let you know what flavor macaron you are eating.

waiting to bake

Graham cracker goodness

Preheat your oven to 300F

Let them sit on your counter to create a skin (I like to let them rest at least 30 minutes, normally an hour as I clean up the kitchen) You will know they are ready when you touch the macaron shell and nothing sticks to your finger. The macaron will also turn a flat matte finish.

Place your macarons in the 300F oven for 14-18 minutes (I rotate the tray at the 7 minute mark), you can check doneness by lightly tapping the top of a macaron if there is no wiggle take them out of the oven.

While they are baking you can make the chocolate ganache & marshmallow filling.

First take one cup of semi sweet chocolate and place in a medium bowl.

Take two cups of heavy cream and place in a small/medium sauce pan. Place the saucepan on the stovetop over medium/high heat

When the cream starts to bubble around the edges take the cream off the heat and pour over chocolate. ( don't let cream boil rapidly or scorch the cream). Only pour enough to just cover the chocolate (about 1 cup of hot cream)

the steam fogged up the camara

Let the hot cream sit on chocolate for about a minute and then whisk to combine.

Add just enough hot cream to cover the chocolate

It will look really runny at first, like chocolate milk,  just keep whisking.

Keep whisking until it looks like this.

smooth chocolate ganache

Place the ganache in a piping bag, and place in the fridge to firm up.

You will have leftover ganache, it keeps well in the freezer

If you are filling the macarons the same day, I like to put my piping bag in the freezer to set up faster and then bring the ganache to room temperature by placing on the countertop right before piping.

For the marshmallow filling you follow the same steps as making the Italian Meringue above. If you don't want to do that just buy that marshmallow fluff stuff. I just don't want to repost the same pictures. So just scroll up and do the same thing with the 60g of egg whites (whites from two eggs) and place in a stand mixer and follow the steps above. When you are finished place the marshmallow cream in a piping bag.

Ok now your macarons should be done baking

I then take the macarons out of the oven and off of the baking tray and place them on the counter top still on the parchment paper to cool 

cooling on the counter

look at those macaron feet

After a few minutes I like to match up the macaron shells of similar size and get them ready to be filled.

match up those macarons

ready to be filled

First I piped a ring of marshmallow cream around each macaron

Pipe a nice ring of marshmallow cream

I then took my kitchen torch and carefully torched each marshmallow ring until it was nice and toasty

nice and toasted

After that in the center of each toasted marshmallow ring I piped some of the chocolate ganache

add a dollop of chocolate ganache

I then sprinkled more graham cracker crumbs on top of the chocolate ganache for even more graham cracker flavor.

A yummy sprinkle of graham cracker crumbs to finish the filling

Now just sandwich them together by placing a macaron shell on top.

For a little added something I melted a little milk chocolate and drizzled that on top of the finished macarons.

They are kind of tall because I didn't want to smash them

so yummy

There you have it, the S'mores Macaron. I placed these in an airtight container to mature in the fridge for at least 24 hours. 

These make you want to go camping

I tried one and they are super yummy, and will now be a summer staple for me in the future. I think they look cute and everyone who has tried them says they really taste like a S'more.

I took a bite to show the inside, crunch exterior, chewy interior, and marshmallow + chocolate filling