Hi

Am planning on serving Chocolate Eclairs for potluck in our church on Thursday. I have already made the Choux shells as per instructions. On removal, made a slit on the opposite side for the steam to escape so they would remain crisp and refrigerated on cooling in plastic bag and a plastic container piling them one over the other.

They have become soft now.

1) How much time do I keep them in the oven to recrisp them? Shd I cover them with an Aluminium foil or shd I place them in paper bags and then place in the oven? I am going all the way, covering the tops with Chocolate Fondant and filling them with pastry cream and fresh cream. I will be filling them prior to service only.

2) But if I have an option to fill them and refrigerate them, with absolute no loss of quality, then that is more convinient for me, kindly advise.

My biggest fear is whether the Choux Shells will get soft and squishy as they stay out….i do so want them to have the characteristic crisp you experience when you bite into a cream puff or Eclair .

3) Once I dip the tops of the Eclairs in the fondant, do I need to refrigerate them? Or is it ok to just leave them the way? I will be covering the shells with Fondant in the afternoon and the potluck starts at 8 at night.

Thank you, kindly revert.

For future reference, I’ve always had excellent luck freezing choux of any variety (unfilled, of course), rather than refrigerating.

For re-crisping in the oven, I would just put them on a non-stick surface such as a silpat or parchment and bake until warm and crisp.  You may have to try a test bake with just one to see how long, etc.

I don’t know of any way to fill them in advance without softening, if you want them crisp you may have to do it as close as possible to serving.  The only thing that comes to mind is to slice them in half after crisping and coat the inside of the shell with a thin layer of melted chocolate, then fill and reassemble the halves.  But then when people bite into them, the filling will come out the sides because they’ve been split.

Not sure about the fondant, I haven’t worked with it before- perhaps others who have will chime in

They sound yummy, good luck!

You want to fill them as close to serving as possible; they will soften in a matter of hours.  Once you put the fondant on, you can refrigerate them.  I have the most success using the recipe from Pichet Ong; it calls for sweetened condensed milk which makes for a beautiful brown color and crisp shell; it’s the only choux recipe I use anymore.

Thank you Julie and Jeanne…

Let me tell you what happened on Thursday….

I put the prebaked Choux in the oven and it took abt 2—25 mins on 175 degree C to recrisp, probably ‘coz I put an Aluminium foil over it to cover it. It recrisped great.

Inspite of using a small slender tip, filling the shells were dicey(how the heck do you do it???) so I sliced them into half and filled it. Prior to that, once I slit them in two, I covered the top portion in Chocolate Fondant and placed it in the fridge.

I filled it with a combination of pastry cream and whipped cream and refrigerated it again till service time. Was served in 10-15 mins and it retained their crisp which was my biggest concern.

It tasted really good….it sure was a lot of work, and working within the time limit was challenging and fun. Got good reviews. So sorry could’nt do pictures, now that I got a new phone which takes excellent pix, will be posting pix more,smile.

Thanks once again for helping out. Will be freezing them when I make them again.

Also I’ve heard of Pichet Ong’s recipe for the Choux paste which seems to be so popular…will try that next.