No Birthday Cake?????

Yesterday I asked Paul what kind of cake he wanted for his birthday. He replied he wanted either Chocolate Eclairs or Profiteroles.
I'm not good with puff pastries so eclairs was out.....and when he showed me what profiteroles were- it was just a different shaped eclair. Same ingredients- made the same way- just a different shape.
Being a sport- and wanting him to have what he wanted on his birthday- I told him I would have to do a trial run before his birthday and so I went straight to the kitchen at 10PM and got started.

I made up the vanilla custard for the filling and put it in the fridge to chill while I got started on the pastry. The chocolate glaze for them takes about 2 minutes to make and 5 to cool and you do that while the pastry is cooling after baking.

I made up the first batch and it just LOOKED wrong- it looked like very thin pancake batter and I KNEW it should have looked more like very thick yeast roll dough but with a richer sheen and color. But I had never made them myself before- only seen it done- and so I carried on......

To say those things turned out flat as a pancake is seriously overstating it......they were literally as flat as a DIME- and would have given a dime a bit of room to wiggle in, at that!!!

So I waited for Paul to finish writing his blog and then I went BACK on the net to double-check the recipe I had written down and to check it against some of the other recipes for the same thing.
Turns out I had written everything down correctly from the first one- BUT when I checked it against some of the other recipes for the same thing- the AUTHOR of the first recipe had managed to leave OUT a few KEY ingredients(like baking powder and sugar) and ALSO a few KEY instructions to COOKING it-( like after it comes to a boil- boil for exactly one minute and then remove from heat and let COOL before adding the flour), so when I checked several other recipes against them- the second one was the correct version so I went BACK to the kitchen and tried a second batch.

The second batch came out looking SO much better than the first one-BUT- I had went to check them after only 30 minutes of baking time(the recipe called for 40 minutes baking time) and they were looking better than the first batch- but they were so browned they weren't right either.

So I dumped them in the trash bin and gave it a THIRD try- adjusting the baking time to the initial 15 mins and checking them every 5 minutes thereafter. It took a mere 20 minutes to get the color and consistency right.
I took them out, cooled them off and then filled them with the custard and topped them with another profiterole and then topped that with the chocolate glaze.

Looked very nice. Smelled very nice. Tasted So-So.
Altho these were "nice" to eat, they STILL weren't as light and fluffy and tender as they should have been. I know baking and these just weren't close altho they were edible.

(The photo is the actual ones I made- not a net pic.)

After eating one- Paul said he liked them- but would like ones with a cream filling much better than the custard filling- and I agree with him....the cream filling would be MUCH lighter and less rich than the custard filling. He was also a sweetheart and told me if it was too much trouble to do these he would be PERFECTLY happy with a regular Birthday Cake.

No- I can't let this beat me....I must conquer the pastry dough!!!!
It must be light and airy and tender and flaky and rival the creations of the great Pastry Chefs of France!!!

Guess what I'll be doing for the next couple of weeks???
Yep- Right after I take down my tree.....and I SWEAR I'm actually DOING that as soon as I hit PUBLISH for this post. It's been long enough now.

(REALLY-I AM!!!!!!!!)