Best Chocolate Eclair Recipe

Hello bakers, today we are going to make a classic French dessert that happens to be my all-time favorite

chocolate

eclair

. The lightest choux pastry, filled with vanilla pastry cream and then dipped in

chocolate

. It's very easy to do. So satisfying. Let's get started. The shoe is one. one of my all-time favorite things to make is so simple that it's basically foolproof half a cup or 113 grams of unsalted butter 1 cup of water 240 milliliters half a teaspoon of salt and about a teaspoon in half two teaspoons of sugar we're I'm going to put this on high heat and bring it to a boil, remove it from the heat very quickly, pour it into a cup or 120 grams of flour and stir hard with a wooden spoon, stir, stir, stir, stir until it's all incorporated and that's it. to stir for about 30 to 60 seconds, okay, now we return to the heat and stir for another 30 seconds or so.

You will see this shape as a ball. Now we're going to pour this into a stand mixer. You can see. It's very hot, so start mixing it like medium and cracking one egg at a time. One egg is mixed in steam once it is incorporated, add the next. We're also going to want to scrape the bowl. I love the color of the third egg. I want you to see. It is becoming more cohesive, as if separating and forming strands. We want the dough to hang from the paddle attachment but drip slowly, so you want a nice, silky consistency.

This isn't here yet, so let's add it. in a final egg, no, no, add a final egg a little at a time and let's see where it's almost there, I'm going to add the rest of that egg, it's a total of four eggs, okay, take a look at this. silky falling slowly that's exactly what we want now we can transfer this to a piping bag like I have to tell you the color is just amazing and would I eat it raw? Yes, I have and I think it is delicious. I'm transferring it. my dough to a pastry bag fitted with a large star tip which is an 869.

Normally I would use a round tip, but a star tip should give you a little more control when baking and have a nice, fluffy, pretty

eclair

, but They both work and I. You don't mind the more rustic look of a round tip if you don't have a piping tip, just cut the tip off your piping bag and it will be fine. I have a small piece of dough here, I'm just going to keep you. there I have a little bit of dough here and I'm just going to add a little bit to the corners of my baking sheet to keep it in place while I pipe and wash the eggs.

I don't think it's moving. I'm going to try to make these nice and pretty, but if things fall apart, the egg wash fixes everything, so don't panic, don't worry about it, make sure you space them a few inches apart because they will puff up. the oven something very satisfying about taking them out we're going to fix those tips at the end don't worry you can also use a pair of scissors to cut the end that works too and it's not cheating set aside we have another batch On the left, these need a egg wash before putting them in the oven, it will make them pretty and give them a little shine.

A tablespoon of milk. Egg. Give it a quick mix. Here's a little advice if things didn't go as well as you'd like. during the piping and a little bit misshapen, you can use the beaten egg to sculpt things together, it will fix a lot of the problems you don't want little dots coming out of these because they will definitely burn them. bake on high heat so use the beaten egg to push down a little and then you can gently brush the rest of the way. This one is a little fat, so I'm going to put it together here.

Think of it like Photoshop baking. The ridges are actually going to disappear for the most part, but they help control spreading during baking, so they are there and look good. One more batch missing. These will go in the oven at 4 25 for 15 minutes and then reduce the temperature to 375 and bake for another 20 to 25 minutes or so until they are nice and golden brown and don't be afraid to turn them halfway so they get a nice even color first of the custard, it has to cool. you have to make it first, you could even make it the day before, you'll add two cups of whole milk and you have the option, I'm going to follow the old method and use a real vanilla bean, it's just like you like the dirty old floss which is very expensive without vanilla beans if you don't want to like them buy them because they are expensive get vanilla bean paste, it has all the beans, lots of vanilla flavor, vanilla extract tastes almost exactly the same so you could also use the extract, the only thing What you're going to miss are the small seeds.

Okay, let's divide this in half, just cut it in half and now use your knife and scrape out all those seeds. Throw away the pod. Also, we're going to bring this to a boil and then take it off the heat. We want a nice hot vanilla milk for this custard, and then while that's happening while my milk is heating up, let's move on to the egg yolks, so I need six egg yolks for this. I'm going to separate the whites and if you're careful, the whites can be used for meringue, just pop them in the freezer for later when it just boils, it's off the heat. that milk infuse with all the vanilla one two three four five and well six egg yolks add two thirds of a cup of sugar directly into that bowl and beat until light and fluffy, beat well until it is lighter in color, no it has to be like that. super fluffy, this is where my exercise for the day will come.

You will see that it is lighter in color, thicker and wonderful. A quarter cup of cornstarch, so I'm just going to sift while whisking to avoid lumps. Well incorporated, I have my hot milk mixture. I'm going to take a quarter cup and use it to temper the egg yolk, so we're basically whisking a small amount to warm the mixture so that when we slowly and carefully pour in the rest it doesn't stir. eggs carefully, I'm going to drizzle this in while whisking vigorously, but carefully, now that I've got my mixture hot, what I'm going to do is clean this up real quick and then we're going to strain it again. put it on the heat and it's almost ready, you're going to put it on top and you're going to whisk, whisk, whisk, whisk continuously and by the way, I'm using my French whisk which is a narrower shape than the traditional balloon whisk so it's much more practical.

I feel like the corners of the pan started to thicken, the bubbles are disappearing and we're going to stir very vigorously and we finished good, so off the heat I want you to take a look, that's what you're looking for, it smells so good, so thick and delicious, so hot, you have to put it in the refrigerator, but of course a custard will form a skin very quickly, like a pudding, so you should cover it with plastic and let it cool for a few hours. let it cool overnight so for the eclair chocolate glaze I'm going to chop up about five ounces of a really good dark chocolate so basically I'm making a ganache.

If you have a favorite way to make a ganache, you can let me know. I know in the comments that I'm all ears. I have half a cup of hot cream here. Let's just add the chocolate. You can see it's already starting to melt. Let it sit for a moment, let it sit for a few minutes and then. when you get back you can whip it up it will be nice and silky and if not a couple of blasts in the microwave will fix everything let's look at this ganache it's been a few minutes. What I love about this part, it really adds.

I'm glad, how pretty, look at this silky ganache that is perfect. The pastry cream I made yesterday is very firm and fresh, and since I haven't had breakfast yet, there is my favorite dish to eat, it's very good, okay, so let's go. make some whipped cream and by a little I mean a cup full of thick whipping cream and that's it, then we're going to beat it with a couple tablespoons of sugar and beat it until it thickens. I'm going to add a splash of vanilla, okay guys, look perfect, okay, choose what you want to add, you can add a little bit, a lot, it's up to you, in fact, I'm going to beat this to get it.

It's also more pipetable, okay, here we go, now I have a custard with some whipped cream folded in. It will be easier to fill my eclairs and it will be so delicious I could eat this entire bowl. Okay, what am I going to do? To fill them, the

best

way is to use a 230 piping tip, this is basically like a very large injector needle and it will pierce the bottom like this, squeeze out that delicious pastry cream that we lightened with the whipped cream and you're going to If you don't have one of these tips What you can do is simply cut the eclair in half, fill it with the filling however you want, and then turn it into a sandwich.

It's

best

not to fill the piping bag too much because your hands will heat this up and it will become a little runny so it's best to keep it cold, this looks so daunting, take a fresh statement shell and then fill it and you will feel it become heavy, I thought: is anyone coming out? fill, fill, fill and then you can just fill until you see it coming out the top or you feel like it's heavy enough, here we go, ah, this feels nice and substantial now that they have so much custard in them, one of the reasons why the ones I like to lighten. with whipped cream it's because they're like little balloons that hold a ton.

I would eat this right now in a second, but for you I'm waiting for the chocolate. These should be filled right before serving for best results because I want the shell to have that kind of nice crunchy texture. The custard will make things soggy after a while. Now, to give it the final touch, a dip in that silky chocolate ganache. I can't express how excited I am to eat this. It's very good, very good. Doesn't that look sexy? I don't know, do you love me? I like it like this perfect if the chocolate looks a little dull a little cream a little whipping fixes everything let's go have a bite do you see all this pastry cream on? the interior with chocolate, this ultra light, thin and crispy shell, mmm, I'm not going to subject you to me eating, but if you love this

recipe

, check out my best German chocolate cake, it's so good you'll put down your eclair, check it out and eat it . the eclair while you make the cake, that's the situation there and you can also watch my super cut cake compilation video, just the good stuff, all the decoration, check it out.