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The delicious pastry only takes five ingredients and makes a divine vessel for the creamy vanilla filling. It’s all topped off with a rich, chocolate frosting. Yum! Chocolate Eclairs Pastry 1 cup water 1/2 cup butter, cubed 1/4 teaspoon salt 1 cup all-purpose flour 4 eggs Filling 2 1/2 cups cold milk 1 package (5.1 ounces) instant vanilla pudding mix 1 cup heavy whipping cream 1/4 cup confectioners’ sugar 1 teaspoon vanilla extract Frosting 2 squares (1 ounce each) semisweet chocolate, or 1/3 cup semisweet chocolate chips 2 tablespoons butter 1 1/4 cups confectioners’ sugar 2 to 3 tablespoons hot water In a large saucepan, bring water, butter and salt to a boil....

Sending a dirty letter through the mail has the added benefit of surprise. You have no idea when the subject of said letter is going to be opening the mailbox and (hopefully) dropping everything and racing to your boudoir. How To Do Things (not to be confused with the How To Wiki) has a short, easy and totally doable list of things to keep in mind when writing down your nasty little fantasies for your boyfriend....

A surgeon calling himself “the number one surgeon of his type in the Northeastern United States by volume” sent out a mass email to all the contacts he met at a conference. Not SO weird, right? Just wait. He was not looking for professional contacts. Oh no. He was soliciting matchups. With their friends. But it did not stop there… These fix-ups were only acceptable IF the woman met his laundry list of criteria....

But do I want my daughter’s school going after her for the length of her skirt? No. For one very simple reason. Which I will get to in a minute. But first … Earlier this week there was a big to-do about how a high school in San Jose included the cheerleaders’ uniforms in a new ban on short skirts. Did I mention the uniforms were brand-new and cost $300?...

“But what about all your STUFF?” you may be wondering. I was carrying this baby around with me (see below), and it weighs about 5 pounds empty. Well, I’ll tell you –here’s how I took care of the STUFF issue and made carrying a tiny purse work for me. Handbag I love you, but you’re bringin’ me down Keep supplies in your office desk drawers. Those of you who drive a lot, you could keep a bag of these essentials in your car....

More from CafeMom: Parents Be Warned: The ‘Tide Pod Challenge’ Is the Most WTF Social Media Game Yet Next, she creates a filling made of xanthan gum, corn syrup, coconut water (that makes it healthy, right?), and food coloring. After blending that baby up, she pipes the filling into the mold and freezes until the “pod” is hard.

Many moms think of epidurals as a godsend but have only a vague notion of the risks. What was your view of epidurals before you got one?In my birthing class, it was spoken of almost as if it were a modern marvel; women no longer need to endure the inhumane suffering of childbirth thanks to advances in modern medicine. It was almost like, “Why wouldn’t you get the epidural?” At the hospital, prior to getting induced, the nurse overseeing my induction gave me the informed consent form for the epidural....

Hey, it’s certainly not the strangest scenario out there, and it’s one that has played out on and off screen in pop culture before. (Ross Geller’s ex-wife, anyone? Belly Fat Cure author, devoted husband, and father of two Jorge Cruise came out recently, too …) But just because the situation has gone mainstream and primetime doesn’t mean it’s gotten any easier for both parties involved. When guy meets girl, guy marries girl, then guy comes out, there’s usually a lot of sympathy for the closeted party....

Here it is: More from The Stir: Woman Posts REALLY Nasty Note After Neighbor’s Loud Bedroom Activities After the mom showed her brother, a dad blogger, the letter, he went off. He wrote a long, thoughtful post on his blog, sticking up for his sister, brother-in-law, and niece. He makes lots of good points (the baby normally doesn’t cry at night) and describes the kind of people his family members are....

You know who retrieves an apple? That crazy guy who’s willing to dunk his entire body into the bucket. But you don’t need to go through those lengths. You just need a strategy. Herewith: Your Apple Bobbing Strategy Okay apple bobbers, it’s all about the prep. Choose an apple-bobbing-friendly costume: scuba diver. Leave the false eyelashes at home. Wear vampire teeth to help grasp the apples. Did I mention you’re actually a vampire scuba diver?...

Keeping your cast-iron skillet in tip-top shape will allow it to last a lifetime — and then some! According to Tennessee-based Lodge Cast Iron, your cookware can survive 100 years or more. So, just how do you maintain it properly? Laura Candler of Lodge shares how to keep this perennially popular kitchen tool at its peak. Seasoning is key! When you think of “seasoning,” you might picture salt, pepper, and a few other spices, but in this case, “seasoning” a skillet refers to a light coating of vegetable oil that’s baked onto the iron....

My hair is naturally pretty light, and dyeing it has always been the way I express myself — and the way I create my own identity. Changing my hair — whether that’s by coloring it blonde, black, brown, red, purple, pink, or orange — is how I show the world who I am, and who I want to be. But whether you dye your hair yourself or get it colored at a salon, one question ALWAYS remains: How do you get hair dye off your skin?...

If that sounds like a fabulous idea, NOW is the time to get planting. Those pumpkins won’t just pop up overnight. We rounded up gardening expert Shirley Bovshow of Eden Makers and Foodie Gardener to show us how. Bovshow appeared on the Hallmark channel’s Home and Family to demonstrate. It’s pretty simple, but there are 6 key steps to growing your own pumpkins that you’ll want to follow. Even though I’ve been gardening for 15 years, I learned a lot....

“Women may be comfortable having a home birth, but maybe their partner is or their mother isn’t,” explains midwife Kristin Mallon, C.N.M. “And a lot of women risk out of having a home birth for various reasons, like they get gestational diabetes or have high blood-pressure. Home birth is really only for the lowest risk women, so other women, who are low-risk but not the lowest risk, can still have that home-like birth they want in a hospital setting....

Researchers from the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory joined forces with scientists at UC San Francisco and Nanjing Medical University for the study, which was published in Scientific Reports. “Up to the present, there is very little evidence on the unique health effects imposed by exposure to thirdhand smoke, as we have only begun research in this field,” lead study author Bo Hang, a Berkeley Lab staff scientist, told CafeMom....

My son was a newborn when Barack Obama was elected president. The night of the election, I sobbed when it became clear that Obama was going to win. I couldn’t help but think about my father-in-law, who joined the army when it was still segregated, and about my husband, who was born in a time when interracial marriage was still illegal in 22 states. I watched election results come in while nursing my son and I felt such hope....

But now, thanks to this piece that offered a lot of anecdotes and not so many downsides, we were scared. It was one of those things, in some ways, I was just waiting for. We have members of both sides of our families in various places on the spectrum, and it felt somehow we had more than the average person’s chance of having a child on the spectrum. So this article confirmed this secret fear....

Miss A might not be in every single drugstore like e.l.f. Cosmetics, but its products are even more affordable — and it has just opened a retail location. So, is Miss A worth the hunt? I bought a full face of products and found out. I bought all of these items to recreate the exact makeup routine I use on an average work day, which is a pretty light load for me....

So for me, there was no “Is this labor? Or are these Braxton Hicks?” concerns. There’s also prodromal labor, that are real, functional contractions that can REALLY feel like labor but aren’t. How can you tell the difference? Braxton-Hicks are “practice” contractions that happen throughout your pregnancy, and can happen in more regular or strong manners the closer you get to giving birth, but it’s not ‘real’ labor, and generally won’t be confused as such....