21. Eclairs/Profiteroles

Pastries at dusk are the first three words that come to mind when I think of eclairs. When I was younger, Mum and I used to buy a two pack of eclairs from Sainsbury’s to play “Pastries at Dusk”. This was not a complicated game. We would sit at the table, with one eclair each and see if we could finish it faster than the other without licking our lips. I nearly always won. In hindsight, the licking your lips thing is only hard if it’s a sugared doughnut, but that didn’t stop the fun. I loved pastries at dawn with Mum, and have loved eclairs longer than that. So when we made eclairs at school last week, and I knew I would have to practice them for my exam, I thought why not put up an eclair/profiterole recipe on the blog? This won’t be quite the same as the recipe I was given for the exam, and also won’t be the same flavours, but it’s close enough to get some practice in!

My eclairs unfortunately deflated a bit in the oven as I opened the door a little too early and let the steam escape, so I would recommend keeping the door shut and just peering in if you can, if your oven has a light. Still tasty though!

Makes 12-14 eclairs or roughly 30 profiteroles

Ingredients

For the choux pastry

• 65ml water

• 65ml milk

• 50g (1.75oz) butter

• A pinch of salt

• A pinch of sugar

• 75g (2.5oz) plain flour

• 5 or 6 medium eggs, beaten

For the crème pâtissière

• 250ml milk

• 4 egg yolks

• 45g (1.5oz) sugar

• 15g (0.5oz) plain flour

• 15g (0.5oz) cornflour

• 1 tsp vanilla extract

• A knob of ginger, chopped (optional)

• A small banana, chopped (optional)

For the chocolate ganache

• 175g (6oz) dark chocolate

• 75ml double cream

• 15g (0.5oz) butter

Method

1. In a pan, melt the choux pastry butter and add in the milk, water, salt and sugar. Bring this mixture to a light boil and remove from the heat to add in the flour. Mix this well and then return to a medium-high heat for at least a minute, stirring continuously to dry it out a bit. It may start to lightly coat the bottom of the pan. Transfer the pastry to a bowl to cool.

2. Grease a baking tray with butter and leave to the side. Preheat the oven to 180C.

3. After your pastry has cooled to just above room temperature, start adding the eggs a small amount at a time. Once you have mixed in the first bit of egg so that it is all fully combined, you can add another bit of egg and repeat. This MUST be done in multiple steps or else the egg won’t mix in properly. You may not need all the egg.

4. Keep adding in the egg until you get to “dropping consistency”. To test for dropping consistency, get a decent amount of mixture on your spatula and hold it over the bowl to see how it drops. If it stretches and forms a V hanging from the spatula after dropping, you have reached the right consistency and do not need to add any more egg.

5. Put the mixture in a piping bag with a round piping nozzle. Pipe your eclairs or profiteroles onto the baking tray. Profiteroles should be about the size of a 10p, the eclairs should be about 12-15cm long.

6. Bake for 18-22 minutes until evenly golden brown. Don’t open the oven part way through! Take out and allow to cool on a wire rack. Not on the tray, they will stick!

7. Make the crème pâtissiere. Put the milk, vanilla and half the sugar in a pan and heat gently until steaming quite heavily, but not boiling. If you want to make banana and ginger cream like I did, add the banana and ginger to the milk to infuse it.

8. In a bowl, whisk together the egg yolks and rest of the sugar, then add in the flour.

9. Drain the steaming milk into the bowl, through a sieve if you added the banana and ginger, and whisk the mixture immediately so that the egg mixture doesn’t coagulate. Return the mixture to the pan and put back on the heat. Keep whisking the mixture.

10. Cook until the cream thickens and becomes elastic and glossy. It will “boil”, i.e. a bubble may come through the mix, which means it has cooked. Continue cooking until it no longer tastes starchy. You can only really do this by tasting it!

11. Put the cream on a plate or tray to cool and cover with clingfilm touching the surface to stop a skin forming. You can cool it at room temperature or in the fridge, but shouldn’t leave it in the fridge for too long or it will get too cold.

12. Make the ganache by melting the butter in a pan, adding the cream and bring it to a boil. Take off the heat and add in the chocolate in chunks. Stir until chocolate has fully melted and it is all well combined.

13. Once the eclairs/profiteroles have cooled, make small holes in the bottoms using a star shaped nozzle.

14. When the crème pâtissière has cooled to room temperature, or just above, scrape it into a bowl and whisk until smooth. Put in a piping bag with a nozzle the same size as you used to make the holes and use this to fill your eclairs/profiteroles. Scrape off any excess from the bottoms.

15. Dip the eclairs/profiteroles in the cooled ganache or spoon the ganache over.

16. Enjoy!