Chocolate Eclairs

Treat the family with homemade chocolate éclairs—light, fluffy pastry filled with sweet cream and topped with rich chocolate. Easier than you think

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Course: Snacks, desserts & condiments

Cuisine: Dessert

Keyword: chocolate, chocolate icing, pastry

Prep Time: 20

Cook Time: 50

Chilling: 12

Total Time: 13 10

Servings:

Calories: 310kcal

Ingredients

Choux pastry

200 ml 7.5oz full cream milk
90 g 3oz unsalted butter, finely diced
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon sugar
120 g 4oz plain (AP) flour, sifted
3 eggs

Chocolate filling

200 ml 7.5oz of cream
130 ml 5oz milk
4 egg yolk
60 g 2oz caster (superfine) sugar
165 g 6oz dark chocolate 70%

Icing

3 tablespoon icing sugar
½ tablespoon cocoa
enough water to reach the right consistency

Instructions

Filling

Put the cream and the milk in a saucepan and heat to a boil. Whisk egg yolks and sugar together until they become a pale gold.
Add the cream and cook gently, stirring constantly without boiling, till the mixture thickens and coats the back of a spoon.
Take it off the stove and stir in the chocolate to melt. Chill in the fridge over night or for at least a few hours.

Eclairs

In a saucepan, combine the milk, butter, salt and sugar and bring to the boil. Remove from the heat, add the flour and mix well with a wooden spoon.
Put the saucepan back on medium heat and, while mixing, cook the dough until it resembles a dry ball (about 5 minutes).
Transfer the dough to a bowl. Add the eggs one by one, mixing well each time. The pastry can be used straight away or left to rest for up to 40 minutes, covered with plastic wrap.
Preheat the oven to 190°C (375°F) and line a baking tray with greaseproof paper. Put some of the choux pastry into the piping bag (do not overfill or it gets very hard to handle) with size 13 nozzle and pipe out six 12 cm long sausages onto the tray. Leave plenty of space around each one so they won’t touch during baking.
Bake for 30 minutes, and then reduce the oven temperature to 150°C (300°F) and bake for a further 15 minutes. Do not open the oven during cooking or the pastry will collapse.
Transfer the éclairs to a wire rack to cool.
Make a little hole in the bottom of one end of each éclair and carefully fill with the chocolate cream using a piping bag with nozzle size 6.
Make the icing by stirring all the ingredients and place in a bowl big enough to fit an eclair length-ways. In a sweeping motion, dip the éclair into the icing, lifting it upwards so that any excess icing drips off one end.
Place the éclairs on a plate, fondant side up, and refrigerate until ready to serve, or eat one straight away if you're impatient. I must admit it was worth waiting until they were chilled.

Nutrition

Have you made this recipe? I'd love to hear what you think. Tag me on Instagram @clairekcreations