Tout Les Eclairs

One of the most delicious pastries to enjoy is the French eclair. A true Gallic one, filled with delicate cream inside an airy puff of a choux shell is hard to find, non? Not anymore. There a fantastic new cookbook that has every kind of eclair from traditional to the innovative.

Award-winning pastry chef, Christophe Adam has written a very easy to follow book Eclairs,Easy Elegant and Modern Recipes (Robert Rose Press ) all about his signature dish, The classic French pastryParis features everything from popcorn stuffing to sexy eclairs. that feature not the traditional dark chocolate icing ,but a sexy sugar screened picture of a voluptuous Madame Noel or Mrs. Santa.It's no surprise that his good friend is Dominic Ansel, the creator of the famed and wanted cronut. Chef Adam, shares the same high-spirited sense of inventiveness and fun.The cookbook reflects his innovative style with such interesting and nontraditional ingredients as hazelnuts and passionfruits. Unlike some loftier pastry chefs, Chef Adam explains how to make the eclairs in simple language any home chef can understand along with providing detailed pictures of how-tos.What I like about it is the book is that he as a detailed and illustrated list of tools needed as well as his encouragement to go off script and come up with your own original fillings and toppings
, named after lightning,  has been elevated to gourmet status thanks to a sprucing up. Hist patisserie L'eclair de Genie, in the Marais section of

The eclairs themselves are in a rainbow of colors. The choux dough can even be dyed itself to create bright pink shells.perfect for strawberry or raspberry filled eclairs. There is a lemon filled one that has a gaily decorated shell complete with streusel balls and Swiss meringue dots. Apricot eclairs would be a nice treat for any Spring party. The filling is a mix of apricot puree with soft dried apricots and whole cream.Black currents are usually reserved for tarts but Chef Adam makes them an integral part of the eclair filling. The same goes for figs.passionfruit and raspberries. Of course there is the traditional chocolate ones made luxurious with the addition of whole cream and butter. It's decorated with small  squares of gold sugar dusted chocolate. For total fun, whip up the ever fun crunchy chocolate eclairs filled with ganache but topped with silver sugar coated chocolate pop rocks. Caramel , the flavor of the moment is also a filling.with a layer of caramel fondant on top. .There is even a sweet Valentines 'Day themed one where there are heart halves gracing the icing. Keep in mind that all the eclair recipes require gelatin sheets or powder.They can be found at some grocery stores , including Wal-Mart. They are used for thickening the cream so they 're a more solid,,  instead of being gooey and runny.

Eclairs are the new star of the pastry chef. Chef Adam has turned them into flights of delicious fantasy with his innovative recipes and ingredients. Now everyone can experience them in his new  easy to follow cookbook.