A Recipe and A Birthday!

"Chocolate Eclairs"... that seemed to be all I heard about for the first part of last week. I heard about it through a blog, I heard about how good they were from one of my piano student's family, and I heard about these goodies being made (by ten and twelve year old boys) from a mother! I had chocolate eclairs on my mind until Wednesday; it was a rainy day perfect for making something sweet. Since I was making rolls anyway that afternoon I found that I could easily prepare both the rolls and the eclairs at the same time (such as while letting the roll dough sit I could quickly mix up the eclair pastry and get it in the oven). The recipe was more than simple... it was just way to easy for something that tastes oh so good!!

Let me give you the recipe and let you decide for yourself!

"Yummy Sweetness"

Place in a Suace pan:
1 stick of butter
1 cup water
1/4 tsp. salt
Bring to a boil and add in:
1 cup flour
Stir vigorously until a ball is formed.
Remove from heat and cool slightly.
Beat in 4 eggs, one at a time until silky smooth.

Using a small ice cream scoop, place batter, with 2 inches between each "batter blop" on a greased baking sheet.
Bake at 450 degrees for 15 minutes and the at 325 degrees for 10 minutes more. Check for doneness- should be lightly golden all over.
Remove from oven and cool- Then poke a hole into the hollow center with a butter knife of the end of a wooden spoon.

Fill cooled puff pastries with a mixture of:
1 large pkg. instant vanilla pudding
1 cup milk
1 (8oz.) pkg. cream cheese
Beat this until fluffy and then fold in:
3 cups cool whip topping.
Pipe this filling into the puffs.

Drizzle with thick chocolate syrup before serving. Keep filled eclair puffs chilled. Make about 20-28 puffs.

"Puffs waiting to be filled"
You will want to be sure to take the baked puffs off the baking sheet to cool. I left mine on the sheet for about ten minutes and many of them "stuck".
I will be making these again later this week AND I'm putting this recipe in my recipe book! It's definitely a keeper! I'm sure these are better than the ones you can buy at the store!

In addition to the excitement that the eclairs caused we also celebrated a birthday Friday!

Thelma hit the "ripe 'ol age" of twenty last Wednesday and Momma wanted to celebrate with her. It was so much fun to see Momma plotting what to get her, agonizing over what the Birthday dinner was going to be (the menu changed a time or two and in the end I just asked Trevor what he wanted to eat ,which settled the agonizing), and discussing all the little loose ends that still needed tying up.

"I gaw you Fuuuy socks Felma!"
The highlight for most of us was watching Thelma open Sawyers gift! He had bought "furry socks" with much excitement and we had to be on guard for a whole week lest he spill the beans! He wrapped them, with help from Momma of course, in some soft pink flannel and slept with them on Friday afternoon! It was so sweet to watch.

"The Festivities Continue"
Cake and Ice Cream came next along with coffee to keep us warm after the ice cream had lowered the temperature of our blood! We had a splendid time together!