Eclair

My family's favourite dessert is eclairs. Usually we eat eclairs every week on Sunday evening. We buy them at the bakery, but since a short while I make them by myself. It is just so much better when you make them by yourself. Just like the chocolate eggs, I learnt how to make this homemade eclairs from my grandmother. It is a great pleasure that I want to share with you, just like my grandmother did when I was younger. Let's get started with the supplies.

Choux pastry for the eclairs:

• 100 gr butter
• 100 gr milk
• 100 gr water
• 150 gr baking flour
• 7 eggs

Pastry cream:

• 1 l of milk
• 5 egg yolks
• 90 gr pudding powder
• 250 gr sugar
• 1 vanilla pod, scraped out

Chocolate glaze:

• 150 gr whipped cream
• 75 gr glucose syrup (you can also replace it with 100 g of sugar)
• 145 gr chocolate

Now that we have weighed all the ingredients, we can start with the choux pastry. First of all, preheat the oven to 200 degrees. Next, melt the butter with the milk and water in a saucepan and bring it to a boil over a medium heat, stirring regularly. Make sure the butter melts before the milk and water boils. when the mixture boils, add the flour and keep stirring over a low heat until it is dry mass. The drier the mass, the more eggs we can add and the airier the batter will be.

Next, add 6 eggs one at a time to the batter and keep stirring. It's very important to add the eggs one at a time, when you add all eggs at the same time, the batter will no longer be able to absorb it. To see if the batter is good, I have a very simple trick. Scoop some batter on your spatula when it flows out a little bit it is perfect (see third picture above).

Fill the piping bag with the batter and pipe the eclairs on an oven tray covered with baking paper. Please do not pipe the eclairs too close together, because they will double in size during the baking process. Next take an egg and give it a quick mix. Coat the eclairs with egg. Bake the eclairs in the oven for 20 minutes at 200 degrees Celsius (392 ℉). After 20 minutes put a spoon between the oven door to release excess moisture.

For supplies of the pastry cream go back to step1 - supplies.

Use a medium size pan, add the sugar to 3/4 of the milk and bring it to a boil at medium heat. In a separate bowl, add the 5 egg yolks, the scraped out vanilla pod, the pudding powder and the rest of the milk and give it a quick mix. Add some of the boiled milk into the bowl, give it another mix and empty the bowl into the pan of boiled milk. Set it over a heat and whisk continuously until it start thickening up and bubbles are formed.

The pastry cream needs to cool down in the fridge for a few hours. Therefore pour it into another bowl and cover it with plastic.

For supplies of the chocolate glaze go back to step1 - supplies.

Bring the glucose syrup and the whipped cream to a boil over medium heat. While boiling pour the syrup and cream over the chocolate and mix it until the chocolate is completely melted.

Pierce the side of the eclair with a satay stick. Pastry cream needs to be whisked a while before filling the eclair using a piping bag.

The eclairs are almost ready, just one last step. Dip the eclairs in the chocolate glaze and let them solidify for a minute.

The result is wonderful: a nice glossy eclair. Enjoy your eclair!!!

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