French Profiteroles with French Egg Cream (Crème Pâtissière)

For the profiteroles

1. In a saucepan bring the milk, water, butter, sugar and salt to a boil. Pull it off the heat without turning it off. Gradually add the flour while stirring with a wooden spoon, until you get a homogeneous mixture that forms into a ball around the spoon.
2. Lower the heat and return the pan with the dough for a minute. Keep stirring continuously for a minute so the excess moisture evaporates.
3. Pull off the heat and add the eggs one at a time, stirring after each egg. Do not add the next egg until the previous one is fully absorbed by the dough.
4. Turn the oven on to 180°C. Line two trays with baking paper and brush the paper with a little butter.
5. Using a teaspoon scoop small balls and, with the help of another spoon, place them on the paper. You can also use a piping bag with a round 1 cm nozzle.
6. Brush the profiteroles with the yolk beaten in milk. Smooth with the back of the spoon.
7. Bake for 10 minutes at 180°C, then reduce to 170°C. Bake another 20 minutes. Before removing them from the oven, break open one éclair and check that it is well baked inside, because although pleasantly browned outside, they may still be raw inside, and if you take out the whole tray they will collapse very quickly.

For the crème "Patisserie" (French egg cream, literally translated means cream for pastry)

1. Beat the yolks with ½ of the sugar into a thick cream. Add the flour and beat again until you get a homogeneous mixture.
2. Bring the milk to a boil with the other half of the sugar and the cardamom pods. Once it boils, pull it off the heat and remove the cardamom pods. Slowly start pouring the milk into the egg mixture while stirring continuously. After stirring, return the mixture to the pan and let it boil on the stove for 2 minutes. Do not stop stirring. Pull off the heat, add the small piece of butter and stir.
3. Cover with cling film and let it cool.

For the chocolate glaze

1. Pour the cooled cream into a piping bag or make your own from baking paper.
2. Fill the éclairs through the holes formed during baking, or cut them through the middle with a sharp knife. Fill the bottom half and close.
3. Melt the chocolate with the butter over a water bath. Use a teaspoon to drizzle chocolate over each éclair.
4. Wait a few minutes for the glaze to set and sprinkle with walnuts and coconut.

Serve immediately. — Desi

P.S. A month later, during the filming of BakeOff, I realise that making éclairs and profiteroles is not easy work at all. Besides temperature, the thickness of the dough also turns out to be very important. Depending on the size of the eggs, when stirring the dough you have to judge whether to use all four eggs or only some of them. The other important thing about profiteroles is that during baking the surface must stay whole — without cracking. I still haven't reached that perfection, but the attempts continue...