Chocolate Eclairs with Creme Patisserie

Before I even start this blog, I must make this disclaimer. I am not a trained chef. I have never even attended a cookery class in my life. I am just someone who LOVES treats. I mean I really, REALLY love treats. Cakes,biscuits, buns, chocolate, ice-cream.... I am probably the only adult who eats more at a children's birthday party than the children do themselves.

When I was pregnant with my first child I saw it as an excuse to finally eat in the way that I had always dreamed of eating. I ate cake and ice-cream without limits. I had dessert after nearly every meal - including breakfast. I ended up putting on five and a half stone in only nine months. Can you imagine that amount of calories I had to eat every day to achieve that?

After my son was born I became pregnant again almost immediately with my daughter and decided that I may as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb and I continued to eat as though I was carrying five babies and not just one and this is the time in my life where my love of baking really took off.

I stumbled across a chocolate based recipe book in Tesco one cold, rainy day, bought it and the rest, as they say, is history...

I'm not sure if this is the easiest recipe that I could have started with but they are just what I fancied today and choux pastry gets a bad rap for being difficult to achieve while I genuinely find it one of the simplest pastries to make and with a bit of luck after I share my technique, you will too.

This recipe makes around 10 large eclairs or 12- 14 smaller ones if you choose to do that. I make them smaller because when you get to my age, you need to keep your treats smaller so that your pants still close. ( I learnt my lesson the hard way when I was no longer pregnant and had to lose that five and a half stone).

So here are the Ingredients that you will need:

Choux Pastry Dough

150ml of water

60g of butter cut into small pieces

90g of strong, plain/all purpose flour

2 large eggs

Patisserie Creme

2 large eggs lightly beaten

50g caster sugar

2 level tablespoons of cornflour (If you like your creme patisserie a little thicker, add a level teaspoon as well)

300ml of whole milk

1 teaspoon of vanilla extract - If you have a vanilla pod, you can scrape out the beans and use them instead but as this recipe is more for people who don't bake that often, it probably isn't something that everyone has in their press. I would advise that you don't use vanilla essence as I find it synthetic tasting and it just does not have as good a flavour.

Icing

25g butter

1 tablespoon of milk

1 level tablespoon of cocoa powder

100g of icing sugar.

Method

Patisserie Creme

I always make my patisserie creme first as it needs to chill so it can be doing that while I get on with the rest of the eclairs.

First add your eggs, sugar, vanilla extract and cornflour into a mixing bowl and whisk until they are creamy and frothy like in the third picture here.

TIP - use a spatula to scrape your bowl half way through whisking as cornflour can sometimes stick to the sides and you can get lumps.

Next, place your milk into a saucepan and heat it until it is gently simmering. You do not want it to boil. While the eggs continue to whisk pour the milk in, a little at a time until you have put approximately half of the milk in. This is called tempering the eggs. If your milk is too hot or you put it in too quickly, your eggs may cook and you will end up with scrambled eggs so try to do this slowly and gently. When you have poured in half of the milk, then pour the entire mixture back into your saucepan that still has the remaining half of the milk and back on to a low heat on the hob.

Now is where you need to be patient. Keep whisking your mixture on a low heat making sure that the bottom of your pan doesn't burn. I find a wooden spoon works better than a whisk for me so I use it to stir vigorously. Cornstarch needs to come to the boil for your creme patisserie to thicken so keep going until it bubbles. This make take a while but do not turn your back on it for a second. Soon it will go lumpy but don't worry - this is supposed to happen! Just keep whisking for around 2 more minutes and it should go smooth, thick and glossy. It is not normally necessary to sieve your creme patisserie unless it is lumpy but I always do as an extra measure just to ensure it's smooth silkiness.

Transfer it to a bowl and then to the fridge to chill but make sure you cover it in either cling film or baking parchment with the cling film or parchment actually touching the creme patisserie or it will form a skin.

I usually leave this for at least two hours before I use it. Overnight is even better.

Choux Pastry

I have quite a large baking tray, 16 inches by 10 inches. It is important that you spread out your eclairs so that they don't stick to each other so use two trays if yours aren't very big. Draw around 12 lines approximately 3 inches long on to some baking parchment as a guide to pipe your pastry onto but take a tip from me - draw your lines first then flip over the baking parchment so that you can still see the lines but your pastry will not end up with pencil on it.

Next place your water and butter into a saucepan with a low to medium heat and bring to a rolling boil. Remove it from the heat.

Now add all your flour into the saucepan in one go and beat it until the dough comes away from the sides of the saucepan into a ball in the centre.

Now this is the part where I think people go wrong with when making choux pastry so read this next bit carefully.

I want you to add the beaten egg a little at a time beating it vigorously each time to incorporate the egg into the dough. This takes a bit of elbow grease. When you first add the egg your mixture will swish around the pan but as you beat it, it will suddenly get very stiff and difficult to beat as the mixture absorbs the egg. DO NOT add any more egg until you feel this happen. Only when your arm starts to ache slightly can you add the next little bit of egg. If you do this , your choux pastry should work EVERY time.

Eventually your dough will reach a rich, shiny, glossy colour and will have what we call a dropping consistency. There is probably a fancy way to describe this but in lay man terms it means that you pick it up with the spoon and a lump of it drops off the spoon.

Now, while you won't need a piping nozzle for this next bit, you will need a piping bag. Spoon your dough into a piping bag and snip the end of it making an opening in size a little bit more than a centimeter. Sprinkle a tiny bit of water onto your parchment that you prepared earlier and pipe your dough along the lines. You will have a little point at the end of eclair. Just gently prod that with your finger to flatten it.

Preheat your over to 200 degrees or 180 degrees if you have a fan oven (My fan oven doesn't work brilliantly so I always put mine at 185 degrees) and bake for 30 to 35 minutes

When they are done they should be a lovely golden brown like this. As soon as you remove them from the oven you must immediately prick each end of the eclair with a cocktail stick. This will allow steam to escape from your eclair so that they will dry out and will be gorgeous and crisp,

When your eclairs are cooled and your creme patisserie is chilled it is time to fill them. I always cut my eclairs length ways when filling them because unlike profiteroles, which are nice and small so you can just make a little hole and pipe in your cream, these are too long. You will end up with a piece here and there that has no filling which is a huge disappointment when you bite into them so you are better off just cutting these length ways like me. Spoon or pipe in your creme patisserie but do not over fill them or when your bite in to them, the creme will go everywhere and they will be very messy.