M&M Eclair Cake

Hello Decadent Dessert Connoisseurs!

Today's recipe was shared with my entire hall as the birthday cake for October. Happy birthday to my hallmates, Emma, Clarissa, and Kyle :) Thanks to Emmy, Lauren, and Liljuan for baking with me! 

The recipe was originally adapted from the girl who ate everything's Eclair Cake, and a Pinterest photo of a cake covered in M&Ms. However, due to some complications with the instant pudding not solidifying properly in a four hour time period, we had to make some changes to the original plan. Thankfully, it still tasted fantastic and our hall -quite literally- ate it up! 

The Recipe: M&M Eclair Cake

The Crust: 

• 1 cup of all-purpose flour 
• 1 stick of unsalted butter
• 1 cup of water
• Four large eggs

The Filling:

• 1 large box of Vanilla Instant Pudding
• 8 oz cream cheese
• 3 cups milk

The Whipped Cream:

• 1 cup heavy cream
• 1/3 cup powdered sugar (can be substituted for 3 tbsp granulated white sugar)
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

The Decorations: 

• 1 bag of Dark Chocolate M&Ms

The Process: 

The Pudding: ****Must be made the night before or you will not have firm pudding!!****

• Beat pudding mix and milk for 3 minutes.
• Boil pudding-milk mix on the stove. 
• Put in the fridge until set. 
• Also chill a separate bowl for your cream cheese.

Ours did not set, and we ended up pouring the liquid into the crust and refrigerating the whole cake, it still didn't completely set after four hours, and we poured out the liquid, topped it with whipped cream, and ate a slightly less thick cake.

After reading the directions on the actual pudding box rather than the online recipe for this cake, I realized it was missing a crucial step: boiling the pudding-milk mix before putting it in the fridge. We did not do this, but I added it in just for you.

The Filling:

• Whip cream cheese into the chilled bowl
• Slowly add pudding and whip until there are no lumps. It must be thick before being added to the cream cheese. 

The Puff Pastry:  

• Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
• Lightly grease a regular baking sheet
• In a medium saucepot, slowly melt butter in water until it boils. Remove from stove. 
• Put flour in bowl, add water/butter mixture, and stir. 
• Completely mix in one egg at a time (this is the part where it's so much easier to have two people!)
• Spread mixture evenly onto the pan, covering the bottom and sides. It should be relatively wet, like cake batter, rather than thick like cookie batter. 
• Bake until golden brown. (Ours took about 30 minutes.) Remove from the oven and allow to cool without covering it. 

The Whipped Cream: 

• Using a separate chilled bowl, or the chilled bowl from your filling, mix cream and sugar for 1-2 minutes on high. 
• Add vanilla and beat for an additional couple minutes. It should look fluffy rather than thick. 

Putting it all together:

• Once your crust has cooled, pour in the filling. 
• Top with whipped cream. 
• Arrange M&Ms in a pattern, or cover the whole cake, as desired! 

The Calories:

Flour: 455 calories

Butter: 810 calories

Water: 0 calories

Eggs: 312 calories

Pudding: 480 calories

Milk: 309 calories

Cream Cheese: 776 calories

Cream: 821 calories

Powdered Sugar: 154 calories

Vanilla Extract: 6 calories 

M&Ms: 3120 calories

__________________________________________________

TOTAL: 7243 calories

However, I'd say 80% of the milk, pudding, and cream cheese were not in the cake, so subtracting:
7243-[.80*(480+309+776)]= 5991 calories

The cake made about 60 servings, and was shared between 30 people. This means a single serving was about 100 calories. At an average of 2 servings each, that makes a single person's consumption only about 200 calories. (Looks a lot better, doesn't it!!)

While this is far from a healthy dessert (workout included at the end), one of my friends made a wise, biological observation grounded in 100% scientifically proven fact: Calories don't count on your birthday! ;) 

So keep this treat as a birthday favorite, or be sure to share it, as we all deserve a treat sometimes :) 

What went right:

         Most people loved the cake and the puff pastry was perfect; it ended up tasting relatively like a crepe. It's definitely necessary to have the M&Ms for texture and taste, and I think this would be true regardless of the filling concentration.

What went wrong:
        The filling, as mentioned, did not set easily. It would have been nice to know about that earlier. Maybe our fridge just isn't as cold as it should be, but at least now we know for next time.

What I would do next time:
         Make the pudding the night before. I also might try making a custard instead of pudding, since that way I know for sure it will set in a given bake time.

Will I make this again in college?: 
         Given that we all decided we would like make the cake together again, I'd go with yes on that one, as long as it's with my friends :)

Overall, a great cake despite the contents. Made with the full recipe, it definitely needs a work out, but not if you only eat two servings of the one we ended up making.

My personal favorite way to get over college calories is a dance party! Dancing is a fantastic workout, when done full-out. It's a great ab work out, and if you dance in three inch heels like I do, you get some extra leg toning too!

If you're not up for a dance party, do the following rotation three times:
50 crunches
50 reverse crunches
50 oblique crunches
20 leg lifts on one side
20 bridges
20 leg lifts on the other side
20 squats

This should take about 15-20 minutes and you'll burn about 100 calories, depending on your initial weight.