Welcome to our St Patrick’s Day edition. When you hear someone say St. Patrick’s Day, the first thing that comes to mind is leprechauns, green clovers, and the Irish. To honour this special day, I have created a wonderful dessert using a popular childhood cereal.
This month’s dessert is Lucky Charm Éclairs, which are filled with a green pastry cream and topped with a green chocolate ganache. (Bigne Portafortuna con crema pasticcera)
Note: It’s best to eat these fresh, on the day they are made, as they don’t tend to keep well.
Ingredients:
1 cup of Lucky Charm cereal
(no marshmallows)
1 cup of all purpose flour
1 cup of water
½ cup of butter
4 large eggs
½ cup of white chocolate chips or 2 white chocolate bars
½ cup of heavy cream
Green food coloring
Lucky Charms marshmallows for garnish
Pastry cream:
3 large egg yolks
1 large whole egg
¾ cup and 2 tbsp of sugar
1 ½ tbsp of cornstarch
1 ½ tbsp of flour
1 ½ cup of milk
1 ½ tbsp of butter (softened)
1 tsp of vanilla
Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
2. Put your Lucky Charms in a food processer, ground until fine. Transfer to a bowl with flour and whisk until combined.
3. In a medium saucepan, heat water, butter, and salt until butter is completely melted. Add flour mixture all at once and stir vigorously until it forms a ball and comes away from the sides of the pan. Remove from heat and slightly cool.
4. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition until batter is smooth.
5. Transfer batter to a pastry bag ( if you do not have a pastry bag, you can use a ziploc bag with one corner cut) and in 4-5 inch rectangles pipe out dough.
6. Bake for 35 minutes or until golden brown. Turn off oven and leave eclairs in the oven with door slightly ajar for 15 minutes. Cool on wire rack.
7. In a small saucepan heat cream to a simmer, pour over white chocolate, and stir to combine. Tint with green food colouring.
8. In a medium bowl, combine yolks, whole egg, and 2 tbsp of sugar. Add corn starch and flour, whisk until pale yellow.
9. In a medium saucepan add milk and the rest of your sugar, heat to a simmer.
10. Whisking constantly, add the milk in the egg mixture slowly, then pour back in the pot and heat while stirring continuously until thickened.
11. Once thickened add butter, vanilla, and green food colouring. Stir until butter is melted. Let cool.
12. Using a skewer, to poke a hole through the eclairs, Pipe pastry cream into each éclair. Top with the green ganache and finish with some lucky charm marshmallows.