You can find chocolate or coffee eclairs in any bakery shop in France, but it’s always a challenge to find a good one : balanced in texture and flavours. Here is a yummy recipe that I share with you, and may amaze kids after school.
Now, let’s jump into the recipe :
To make 4 to 5 éclairs
Time required : 1h10 min
Baking time : 25 min
Resting time : 1 h
DIRECTIONS
Pastry cream:
190 g milk
15 g sugar
1.5 egg yolks
6 g cornstarch
6 g flour
27 g butter
75 g dark chocolate (70%)
Boil the milk in a saucepan.
Meanwhile, in a large bowl: mix the egg yolks with the sugar.
Add the cornstarch and flour; continue to mix. The whole mixture should be a homogeneous batter.
When the milk boils, pour half into the mixture (egg + sugar + corn starch + flour). Whisk it so that the mixture is homogeneous.
Transfer the mixture into the saucepan and cook over low heat until the mixture thickens. Be careful not to stop mixing with a whisk, otherwise, the cream may be grainy.
Once the cream thickens, let the pan heat (while stirring) for 2 minutes to ensure that cornstarch and flour cook completely.
Add the chocolate and cold butter. Whisk until the cream is homogeneous.
Pour the cream into a bowl and cover the cream with plastic wrap on contact.
Keep the cream in the fridge until ready to use. (30min to 1 h)
Pour the cream in a piping bag to fill the eclairs (using a filling pipe)
Craquelin:
50 g soft butter
50 g flour
40 g sugar
pinch of salt
Mix all the ingredients together evenly. Avoid overworking the dough, the sugar should not melt.
Roll it out to 2 mm thickness between two sheets of parchment paper.
Cut out stripes of dough (1.2 cm wide) with a knife. The stripes will have to be larger than the choux pastry to be able to completely cover them during baking.
Set aside in the freezer until your choux are ready to go into the oven.
Choux :
65 g milk
55 g butter
1 tsp sugar
½ tsp salt
70 g flour
2 eggs
In a saucepan, pour the milk, then add the butter, salt and caster sugar.
Heat everything over medium heat for 5 minutes.
Once the butter is well melted, bring it to a boil, then add, off the heat, and in one go, the sifted flour.
Mix well until a homogeneous dough is obtained.
Dry it in a saucepan, over low heat, for 2 min, without ever stopping stirring the dough. The purpose is not to cook the dough but to dry it out, otherwise the batter will be too liquid and soft. The dough is dried out when it forms a ball and there is almost no steam left when it is crushed. Remove the pan from the heat.
Whisk the eggs in a bowl (one by one), then pour gradually, in a drizzle, over the dough. Mix the dough.
The batter has a good texture when you run your finger through it and the track closes gently after passing. The texture of the batter can be compared to a ribbon.
Fill a piping bag. I recommend putting your piping bag in a deep container, so you can easily pour the batter in it. Let the dough in the fridge for 30 min.
On a parchment paper, pipe the choux (by piping long shapes of eclair around 12 cm long); To do that, use a round pipe of 10mm diameter. Be careful, the shape should be regular all along, otherwise, your eclairs will look hunchbacked. The choux pastry will double in size. I recommend you shaping very thin eclairs.
Put your frozen craquelins on top of each éclairs.
Bake the choux at 180°C/356°F, for about 20 to 25 minutes (with rotating heat). At the end of baking, let the choux pastry cool at room temperature.
Presentation & icing :
150 g sugar
30 g glucose
60 g water
10 g cocoa powder
Fill your eclairs with chocolate cream using a piping bag. You can make 3 holes below or above the eclairs before filling them. This allows for an even amount of cream all along the eclair.
You can stop filling the eclair when it starts to swell.
In a saucepan, heat the sugar, glucose and water until the syrup reaches 114°C/237°F.
Pour the syrup in a mixing bowl and whisk it until it thicken and became white.
You can store it in an airtight box until use
Now, we want to ice the eclair using what we call a fondant. To do so, heat the previous white paste (the fondant) in a saucepan at low heat. The texture of the fondant should be liquid yet doughy, and should not exceed 30°C/86°F, otherwise it will not be shiny anymore.
You can add water in a drizzle, to liquify the paste. Do not stop mixing the fondant.
When the fondant is liquid enough, pour the cocoa powder and mix it until it’s homogenous.
Use a spatula to cover the eclair with your fondant. You can smooth the edges with your finger.
Now that you know how to make chocolate éclairs, please tag me on Instagram to show me your creation (@theparisbest_baking). I would be so glad to give you my feedback and share it with the community !
See you soon on The Paris-Best
Lea from The Paris-Best
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