I do declare, I made some eclairs!

Eclairs are made with choux pastry, which is totally different to make from other pastries I have made before.
Most of my cookbooks are of vegetarian food, but I have a small selection of baking books - not one of which had a recipe for eclairs. Online, there are hundreds, and they vary a lot. In the end I settled for Mary Berry's one as it looked simpler than the others.

http://www.mykitchentable.co.uk/index.php/2011/09/mary-berry-chocolate-eclairs/

Although it was a relatively straight-forward operation, I created an awful lot of washing-up, and masses of mess! It was fiddly, getting the mixture into a piping bag. The eclairs looked very thin when they were piped onto the baking trays, but once cooked, they had expanded and risen beautifully. Golden, light-as-a-feather, fingers of fun!

I whipped the cream too vigorously, so it was rather too thick to pipe. I spooned it into the eclairs and drizzled the chocolate sauce on top.

Result: not a bad first attempt. They could be neater, more even, but they were lovely to eat. My boys loved them, and the friends who were here liked them too.
Personally, I find that too much cream does bad things to me, I have an intolerance, so have to be very sparing in eating it.

My son has requested that I make a new batch this afternoon, and I am happy to oblige.

I gave my friend Sam a couple of eclairs, as a thank-you for lending me the piping bag, and her feedback is as follows:  "marvelous eclairs" and "divine darling!"

So, that is the 12th item crossed off the List.