Eclairs
Ingredients
- CHOUX PASTRY:
- ½ cup butter
- 1 cup water
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- ¼ tsp salt
- 4 large eggs
- CUSTARD FILLING:
- 1 (4 serving size) package instant vanilla pudding mix
- 2 cups milk (or as called for on pudding package)
- 1 cup heavy cream
- ¼ cup icing sugar (aka powdered sugar/confectioner’s sugar)
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- ¼ tsp salt
- CHOCOLATE ICING:
- 2 oz semisweet chocolate (or ⅓ cup semisweet chocolate chips)
- 2 Tbsp butter
- 1 cup icing sugar (aka confectioners sugar/powdered sugar)
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 3 Tbsp hot water
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 450 degrees. LIghtly grease a large cookie sheet and set aside.
- In medium saucepan, combine ½ cup butter and water. Bring to a boil, stirring to melt butter.
- Reduce heat to low and stir in flour and salt with a wooden spoon until the mixture begins to form a stiff ball of dough.
- Remove from heat and add eggs, one at a time, stirring vigorously after each addition to ensure they are incorporated.
- Work quickly, especially with the first one, to prevent it from cooking into scrambled eggs on the bottom of your warm pan 🙂
- With a spoon or pastry bag fitted with a large tip, spread/pipe the thick dough onto prepared cookie sheet into 10 strips approximately 1½ x 4″ each.
- Bake for 15 minutes, then reduce heat to 325 and bake another 20 minutes, until puffed and golden and hollow sounding when lightly tapped on the bottom.
- When removed from oven, IMMEDIATELY pierce the ends almost through to the other side to let steam escape and prevent any sogginess in the middle.
- This hole is also where you will be piping your filling into. Let cool completely before filling and icing (this will only take about half an hour).
- For CUSTARD FILLING: combine pudding and milk in a bowl and mix according to package directions. In a separate bowl,
- beat the heavy cream with an electric mixer until soft peaks form. Beat in ¼ cup icing sugar, 1 tsp vanilla, and ¼ tsp salt. Fold whipped cream into pudding.
- Scoop mixture into pastry bag fitted with a smallish tip (I enlarged my steam holes a bit to make my tip fit,
- so do whatever works) and pipe mixture into centers of eclairs until full. This is a bit of a messy business,
- but worth it for ease of eating and pretty appearance. You could certainly also just slice the eclairs in half horizontally,
- fill the bottoms with cream, and replace the tops. Either way, you will probably have some custard leftover.
- For ICING: Melt the chocolate and 2 Tbsp butter over low heat in a saucepan (or in the microwave,
- stirring after 30 seconds and giving additional 10 second increments as needed until fully melted).
- Stir in 1 cup icing sugar and 1 tsp vanilla. Stir in hot water, 1 Tbsp at a time, until icing is smooth
- and reaches desired consistency. Drizzle, pipe or spread over filled eclairs.
- Store in the fridge.