Eclairs

Delicious crispy, puffy and perfect chocolate eclairs filled with vanilla cream. Eclairs are French origin from the 1800's and the name means ''flash of lightning,, because they are eaten in a flash! That's no wrong... they go so fast that you need to do another portion right away. 

I can remember when I was a child I was dying for eclairs, that not changed much.. I love eclairs. Probably I can say that, that is my favourite dessert. 

I was experimenting with lots of recipes, trying to find which is working the best. I can remember when I was younger it happened that a whole eclair portion went to the bin (pssssst- nobody knows that). So don't get disappointed  if you can't make it for the first time, but I'm sure if you follow the recipe you end up with perfect eclairs. 

The consistency of your dough is the key! Always weigh your ingredients, rather than relying on cup/volume measurements for guaranteed, consistent results. 

If your eclairs are flat and soggy the problem is that your pastry  is too runny (with too much water, eggs, or both). The solution for that is to keep an eye on the dough, and make sure you don’t add too many eggs.  Never add raw flour to your pastry to “fix” runny dough.  You can fix that by making another half batch of the cooked dough with water, salt, butter and flour (with no eggs!). Add the cooled down dough to the runny dough a bit at a time, mixing it into the dough well, until you get the right consistency. 

Never open the oven door to early, to avoid letting out steam from the oven. If you opened the oven too early while baking,  you causing steam to escape, which makes the eclair shells collapse.

And last but not least make sure you bake them long enough.

Ingredients

For the pastry:

• 113 grams of unsalted butter
• 240 millilitre of water
• half teaspoon of salt
• 1-1/2 teaspoon of sugar
• 128 grams of flour
• 4 eggs 

 For the filling:

• 1 litre of milk
• 200 grams of sugar
• vanilla extract
• 4 eggs (separate the whites and yolks)
• 120 grams of flour

For the glaze:

• 500 grams of dark chocolate 
• 2 tablespoon of oil

You can make your filling the day before, so you don't need to wait until it cools down. Simply just put in the fridge till you'r ready to use .

Heat 700 millilitres of milk until almost boiling in a saucepan. Meanwhile, mix together the sugar, egg yolks and vanilla with the rest of the milk  in a bowl, then stir in the flour, a couple of tsp at a time, to a smooth paste. Gradually whisk in the hot milk, pour everything back into the saucepan and cook over a high heat, stirring constantly, until thickens. 

In a large mixing bowl  beat the egg whites in a high speed with a help of an electric mixer until you end up with a fluffy and hard foam. Mix that foam into the hot vanilla cream. It's important that you need to do these till your vanilla cream is really hot.

For your eclairs preheat your oven, line a pan with baking paper. In a large saucepan bring the water, butter, salt and sugar to a boil, when it boils take the pan off the heat. Stir in the flour until is incorporated. Return to the heat and cook 30 seconds, stirring. Scrape the mixture into a bowl, allow to cool for a few minutes, then gradually add the eggs, mixing well between each addition until the mixture reluctantly drops off the spoon. Don’t add all the egg unless you need to. The dough should be thick, but should fall slowly and steadily when you lift the beaters up.

Use a pastry bag with a plain tip and pipe fat lengths of the dough, leave a little space between them. (if you don't have a piping bag you can use a plastic bag as well and just cut the corner off)

In a bowl, whisk one egg with a little bit of water. Brush each eclairs with the wash. Bake them for 15-20 minutes on 200 degrees than reduce the heat about 180 degrees. Bake them until they puffed up and  light golden brown, about 25-30 minutes more. Try not to open the oven door because the eclairs gonna collapse.

If your eclairs are ready and cooled down split them in half using a small serrated knife.

For the glaze simply melt some dark chocolate  with a table spoon of oil in the microwave. Dip the tops of the eclairs in the warm chocolate and let them chill until the glaze is set.

Spoon your filling into a piping bag and carefully pipe the cream into each eclairs, cover with the chocolate  glazed top.

And enjoy!! !