Eclair aux Framboise

I was in eclair madness last weekend. After making durian cream puffs, I've had this idea of making all kinds of filling for eclair. I was super excited to experiment with raspberry filling, melon flavored filling (yes, you read it correctly), tiramisu cream filling (the same tiramisu cream that goes to your tiramisu), light chocolate cream with banana filling, caramel, etc. the sky is the limit). I thought it would be awesome to see how the taste would turned out.

But as excited as I got at that time, I only had time to make the raspberry. I was experimenting with the pastry filling recipe, trying to figure out how much it would take to flavor it intensely. I even bought a whole bottle of Raspberry Eau De Vie (and it's not cheap at all :( ) just to boost up the flavor. The pate a choux part was easy and quick, but the filling part is very time consuming. I had to puree the raspberries three times because there was not enough raspberry flavor in the filling. It turns out that I need LOTS of raspberry puree to flavor the cream. I even put about 50ml of the liqueur (40% alcohol), but I still couldn't taste the rasp flavor as much as I want. The cream filling got somewhat a little runny due to the amount of raspberry puree I put it, so I had to reheat it and add more cornstarch. I also fold in a little whipped cream to get a lighter texture. Somehow I don't like the thick and dense texture of pastry cream especially after you refrigerate it. The whipped cream made the texture wonderful. It made the filling lighter and still smooth and silky.

Pardon for the poorly-taken picture above. This is the best I can get before I was late for work :D that day. You can even notice the frozen berries I used. Someone stacked the eclair in the fridge so it wasn't smooth. But at least I have a picture to remember ;)