STEPS
INGREDIENTS
People like to make choux pastry (the shell) first, but I like to make pastry cream first so they can cool down on the counter while I make choux pastry
To make pastry cream, whisk egg yolk and sugar together until pale, then sift in the flour + cornstarch to the egg mixture and mix until you get smooth paste
Smooth like this 😙
Then on stove, pour milk to saucepan and bring them just to a boil (not boiling hot, just until bubbles come out)
Now time to temper the egg mixture. Add slowly 2 laddleful of hot milk to egg mixture while whisking the egg constantly
Whisk whisk whisk the egg mixtures so they wont curdle and make scramble egg
Now pour back your tempered egg mixtures to milk in the saucepan. Whisk constantly and cook over medium heat until boiling. When it boils, keep whisking until they become thick cream
Here's the consistency you want. Remove from heat and add vanilla extract. I split my cream into 2 bowl..1 with vanilla extract, and the other half I put in some chocolate chips to make choco cream
Here's one with vanilla extract. I cover the surface with plastic wrap
And this one I put in semi sweet chocolate chips..let the chocolate melt in hot cream then whisk until incorporated
You have to let those both cream to completely cool before use. Now lets make the choux pastry aka the shell. First, pre heat your oven to 200'C (about 400'F)
Mix flour with sugar and salt with wire whisk
Boil water together with butter in the saucepan over medium-high heat
Add all of the flour mixture to water-butter mixtures and stir with wooden spatula
Keep stirring untill all combined. You have to stir constantly
Stir stir stir until the dough looks like thick smooth ball like this. If u already reach this consistency, keep stirring for about 1-2 minutes. Then remove the heat
Transfer your dough to electric mixer, and beat on low speed for 1 minute to release the excess steam and moisture from the dough
Add lightly-beaten egg and continue to beat until it becomes smooth thick dough
Thats consitency you're looking for. Dough is thick but will fall slowly
Now place the dough in piping bag. I run out of piping bag, so I place it in ziplock bag then I cut the corner to make opening
Pipe the dough on parchment-lined baking tray. Then glaze them with egg wash (egg wash: beat 1 egg with 2tbps of milk)
Put it in the pre-heated oven and bake for about 15 minutes on 200'C (thats 400'F) then lower the oven temperature to 180'C (350'F) and continue to bake them for about 25minutes
Ta-da. Its so fat 😂 but its ok, no problem at all
Poke 3 small holes at the bottom of baked eclairs. Mine got slightly burned at the bottom, but thats okay, its still good 😂 Place them back on wire rack to cool
Now lets assemble our eclairs
Take your cooled pastry cream, always stir before using, then place them into piping bag
Fill eclairs with the pastry cream from 3 holes at the bottom that we've made before. Fill it until the inside becomes full and feels heavier
Fill in all of your eclairs. Then you can glaze the top of the eclairs with chocolate glaze or any other glaze you like
Here's I'm dipping the top of my eclair to chocolate glaze
Final products! Left is chocolate cream with chocolate glaze eclair, and right is vanilla cream with butterscotch glaze. Yum!
- For choux pastry (the crust):
- 1/2c All purpose flour
- 1/2tsp White granulated sugar
- 1/4tsp Salt
- 2.0 Eggs, lightly beaten with fork
- 50.0g Unsalted butter (approx. 4tbps)
- 1/2c Water
- For pastry cream:
- 1/4c Milk
- 3.0 Egg yolks
- 2.0Tbsp All purpose flour
- 1.0Tbsp Cornstarch flour
- 1/4c White granulated sugar
- 1.0tsp Pure vanilla extract