How to make Eclairs with Vanilla Pastry Cream

Instructions

1. Cook the dough

   • Add the water into the boiling pan together with the salt, the sugar and the butter.
   • As soon as the water starts boiling, we are going to add the flour.
   • Lower the heat all the way down to medium so that the dough itself doesn’t burn.
   • Stir the mixture continuously until the dough comes all together.
   • This is going to take about two to three minutes.

   Turn the oven on now, so it’s at 375°F (190°C) by the time the eclairs go in.

   • You need
   • 1 cup water
   • ½ tsp salt
   • 1 tsp sugar
   • ½ cup butter
   • 1 cup flour

   Start a 3 min timer

2. Let it cool

   • As soon as the dough is ready, we are going to transfer it into a glass bowl.
   • Let it cool down for a few minutes before we add the eggs.
   • Do not add the eggs right away, because the heat of the dough is going to cook the eggs, which will pretty much ruin your recipe.
   • After the dough cools down a little bit, which is going to take about three to five minutes, we are going to start adding the eggs.

   Start a 5 min timer

   Hot dough cooks the eggs.

3. Add the eggs

   • We are going to add one egg, mix it until it’s fully incorporated, and then add the next one.
   • At the beginning, it will look like the mixture will never come together, but keep on mixing, because eventually it will.
   • After you add the last egg, you’ll be able to tell if the dough is ready or not.
   • The dough should be a little bit sticky, so if you put your finger in the dough and lift it right up, it should hold a stiff peak.

   • You need
   • 4 eggs

4. Shape the eclairs

   • Once the dough is ready, put it in a piping bag and let’s grab the baking pan.
   • This is one of the techniques that I use to hold the parchment paper in place.
   • Using your piping bag, squeeze just a little bit of the pâte à choux dough on all four corners of the baking pan.
   • Then place the parchment paper on top.
   • This will hold the parchment paper in place, which is going to make our job easier.
   • When it comes to shaping the eclairs, when you pipe the pâte à choux dough, try to do a spiral shape, because that way you create more lift on the eclairs.
   • After you’re done piping the pâte à choux dough, if there are any stiff peaks, make sure to gently press them down with your finger so that they don’t burn in the oven.

   Press the peaks down, or they burn.

5. Bake

   • Make sure to preheat the oven to 375°F (190°C) and bake the eclairs for about 25 minutes.
   • While the eclairs are baking, let’s prepare the filling, which is a very simple vanilla pastry cream.

   Start a 25 min timer

6. Start the pastry cream

   • In a saucepan, add the milk and a vanilla bean, cut in half vertically.
   • It is a must to use a real vanilla bean when making this recipe, because that is what gives the flavor to the pastry cream.
   • Put the saucepan on the stove, and while the milk is warming up, let’s get the egg yolks ready.
   • In a glass bowl, mix together the egg yolks with the flour, the cornstarch and the pinch of salt.
   • Once the mixture is all combined, add in the sugar and mix it until you get a very foamy consistency.
   • You will notice that the color will switch from yellow to light yellow.

   • You need
   • 2 ½ cups milk
   • 1 vanilla bean
   • 6 egg yolks
   • 2 tbsp flour
   • 2 tbsp cornstarch
   • salt
   • ½ cup sugar

   New to this? How to Separate Egg Yolks from Egg Whites

7. Cook the pastry cream

   • Now it’s time to pour in the vanilla milk little by little.
   • If your milk came up to a boiling point, make sure to cool it off a little bit before you add it to the mixture, because that can cook the egg yolks.
   • Once the milk is fully incorporated, scrape off all the seeds from the vanilla bean and put them back in the mixture.
   • Pour the mixture back into the saucepan, put it on medium heat and stir it constantly until you get a very thick consistency.
   • Take it off the heat, cover it with plastic wrap and let it cool down completely before we can use it to fill in our eclairs.
   • If you’d like to speed up the process of cooling it down, you can put it in your freezer for up to 30 minutes, but make sure not to forget it there.

8. Make the chocolate icing

   • After 25 minutes in the oven, our eclairs should be ready.
   • Now that we have the pastry cream and the puffs ready, let’s prepare the chocolate icing.
   • Using a bain-marie (a bowl set over a pot of hot water), melt 1 cup chocolate chips, 1 tbsp butter and 1 tbsp milk together.

   • You need
   • 1 cup chocolate chips
   • 1 tbsp butter
   • 1 tbsp milk

9. Fill and dip

   • As soon as the chocolate becomes creamy, it’s now time to finalize the eclairs.
   • Using a piping bag, fill in the eclairs with the pastry cream.
   • If you want, you can use a knife to cut a hole to make your job easier, but I was too lazy to do that, so I went the hard way.
   • Once the pâte à choux is filled, dip it in the chocolate and then put it in the fridge for about two hours.
   • And this is how you make eclairs.

   Start a 2 hr timer