Eclairs ca seem like a very intimidating dessert to try and make but they are rather easy! They are just time consuming! Lots of steps but so worth it in the end!
Eclairs
Ingredients
Cream Puff Pastry Dough
- 1 cup water
- 1/2 tsp. salt
- 1/2 cup butter sliced
- 1 tsp. sugar
- 1 cup flour sifted
- 4 eggs
- 1 egg white plus more as needed
Pastry Cream
- 2 cups milk
- 1 tsp. vanilla extract
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1 egg
- 3 egg yolks
- 1/4 cup cornstarch
Ganache
- 1 1/3 cup chocolate
- 1 cup heavy cream
White Chocolate Drizzle
- 1/2 cup white chocolate
Instructions
Cream Puff Pastry Dough
- Combine the water, salt, butter and sugar in a saucepan and bring to a simmer over high heat. There's no need to stir. Turn the heat down to medium and add the flour all at once. Stir with a wooden spoon until the mixture combines and starts to form a ball. This usually takes about three minutes. (It comes together very fast but you need to cook it for a bit still.)
- Transfer the mixture to a bowl or stand mixer and mix for about 1 minute to slightly cool it.
- Mix in the eggs, one at a time, until all four are added. Check the consistency of the batter by pulling the a wooden spoon through it. When the groove it makes slowly closes in on itself, you've added enough eggs. (add one egg white at a time, if needed, to reach the right consistency.)
- Preheat oven to 425℉.
- On a sheet of parchment draw 4 1/2 inch lines in 2 rows, 6 lines in each row. Once draw, flip parchment paper over.
- Fit a pastry bag with a 1/2 inch piping tip (2A) and fill with the Cream Puff Pastry Dough. (I usually put the bag into a tall glass and drop the dough into the bag. Makes it easier and less of a chance of things getting messy.)
- Pipe the batter over the drawn lines. (With any extra, I will usually pipe small dollops in the open areas. These don’t spread out much, they just puff up.)
- Turn the oven temperature down to 400℉ and bake eclairs for about 20 minutes, or until browed and puffed.
- Then turn down the oven to 300℉ and bake for about 25 minutes more or until they feel light.
- Let eclairs cool for about 20 minutes.
Pastry Cream
- Bring the milk and vanilla to a simmer over medium heat.
- In a bowl, whisk the sugar, egg, egg yolks, and cornstarch together.
- When the milk comes to a simmer stir half of it into the egg mixture. (Make sure to pour and stir at the same time so that the egg mixture does not curdle.)
- Pour the egg mixture back into the saucepan containing the rest of the milk. Turn to medium heat and whisk until the cream comes to a boil and thickens. (Make sure to get the whisk down into the bottom sides of the pan to make sure nothing burns.)
- Once thickened, transfer mixture to a bowl and cover with plastic warp touching the surface, so a skin doesn’t form.
- Put in fridge to cool down. If it thickens while in fridge just whisk it back up.
Ganache
- Place chocolate in a meadium bowl.
- Heat heavy cream over medium heat and bring to a boil.
- Once boiling, remove from heat and pour over chocolate.
- Stir until all chocolate is melted and let cool.
Eclairs
- You can fill the eclairs many way but I’ll let you know my two favorite tips to use. First one, use a 1/3 inch piping tip and the second one is the Bismark tip. Use either tip to poke two holes in the eclairs. (Normally the holes are poked on the bottom. I like to poke them both on one side because the filling is less likely to fall out.) 9) Fill a pastry bag, fitted with the 1/3 inch wide tip, with the pastry cream and fill the eclairs.
- Once filled, dip the tops of the eclairs into the cooled ganache.
White Chocolate Drizzle (optional)
- Melt white chocolate over a double boiler.
- Once melted let cool for about 5-10 minutes until easier to handle.
- Transfer melted chocolate to a piping bag with just the very end cut off, to make a very tiny hole.
- Drizzle white chocolate over eclairs.