Finally did them! It wasn't easy but I've finally succeeded in making Eclairs at home!
Eclairs might just be my all-time favorite French pastries.
They are just perfectly balanced and you can eat them at any time of the day.
But it can be quite hard to find them in bakeries and are really expensive if you consider that they are usually only about 3 bites. So I thought to myself, why not just do them myself? I mean they seem basic enough. Something like a biscuit filled with some cream and heavy frosting on top. Easy enough.
Well fuck me.
I don't think I ever had to try a single recipe so many times before getting it right. I think this is my 4th attempt with the previous 3 always lacking in some way. But after going through multiple cooking books and online videos, I can safely say that I finally got it right and with a working recipe as well. So enough talking. Here is how you can do them at home as well, without going through this trial and error process that I had to.

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Preparations:

Just like my cinnamon rolls recipe, this recipe will take time so don't try without first making sure you don't have to stop halfway through.
Besides the time you also need some tools that are necessary for this recipe. A piping bag with a large round tip (2cm Ø) as well as a long thin tip. Everythings else should be in every kitchen so I won't list it.

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Ingredients:

Eclairs	Vanilla Creme Filling	Icing
125ml Water	500ml Milk	~ 30g Egg white
125ml Milk	100g Sugar	~ 200g Powdered sugar
100g Unsalted butter	2 Egg yolks	some lemon juice
A pinch of salt	45g Corn starch
2 tbsp Sugar	A pinch of salt
200g Plain flour / all purpose flour	15ml Vanilla essence
4 Eggs

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Instructions:

Step 1: First we will work on the dough so sieve the flour and at the same time heat up the milk, water, butter, salt, and sugar in a pot until it boils.

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Step 2: Now things will get fast and this is one of the most important steps so read carefully.
Once the milk mixture boils move it from the stove and in one go pour in all the flour. Then quickly stir the mass with a wooden spoon and move the pot back on to the stove while continuing to stir the dough thoroughly. Lower the heat to medium or half and keep stirring until you can see a white layer form on the bottom. (Note: We want to reduce the water content in the dough so we have to heat up the dough) Once this layer turns slightly brown and your dough combined into a shiny mass, take the pot off the stove and put the dough into a separate bowl and let that cool down until its lukewarm.

(This is what your dough should look like after you are finished with these steps)

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Step 3: While the dough is cooling down we will prepare the vanilla creme. For that pour 3/4 of the milk together with the sugar and vanilla essence into a pot and bring it to boil. While the milk mix is heating up, combine the other 1/4 of the milk with the corn starch, salt, and egg yolk. (Make sure you mix this well and don't increase the amount of egg yolk or the egg could separate in the next step.)

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Step 4: Once the milk is boiling you can take it off the stove and mix it with your egg mixture. Now you can put the pot back on to the stove and keep stirring the mixture on a low heat. The cornstarch will slowly thicken the mixture and once you reached a satisfying consistency for your creme, take it off the stove, pour into a separate bowl and let it cool down completely. ( Depending on your room temperature you might want to put the bowl in your fridge.)

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Step 5: Back to the dough. But first, preheat your oven to 200° C or 400° F. Once the dough is only lukewarm you can start working on the next step. For this, get your muscles ready because this step is going to be tiresome. (My kitchen machine can't get it right but maybe you are luckier) Incorporate the 4 eggs one after another into the dough but make sure that you only add another egg once the dough has mixed well with the egg that you added before.

(Only when the dough looks similar to this texture should you add another egg, repeat this step until you get the texture we want. )

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Note: The dough is the most difficult task in this recipe. You don't want the dough to be too soft or it won't hold its shape in the oven. So make sure that after each egg you check the texture. If the dough is shiny and ripping from your spoon in thick peaks, its good. Don't add more eggs just because you have some left. Mine was good after 3 1/2 eggs.

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Step 6: Fill your Dough into the piping bag with the 2cm Ø tip and put about 14 cm long / 5.5 inch long eclairs on a baking sheet. If you form tongues or they are simply misshaped, wet your fingertip with water and push the eclair into the correct shape. Afterward, you want to spray the entire baking sheet, with the eclairs on it, with water. This is an important step as the eclairs need the steam to rise.

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Step 7: Put the eclairs into the oven and while doing that, spray some more water into the oven to ensure that enough steam is in the oven for the eclairs to rise. After closing the oven, drop the temperature to 170° C / 340° F and don't open the oven again for the next 35 minutes or until the eclairs reached a nice golden brown color.

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Step 8: Once the Eclairs are done you need to cool them down completely or the filling will clot. The icing is pretty easy. Simply add the powdered sugar to the egg white and keep adding more powdered sugar until you get this thick icing that you need. (Typically the icing should not run at all [you can see in the picture the icing is even folding instead of fusing back into the mass] and to make it smoother add some lemon juice.)

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Step 9: Once the Eclairs are cooled down you can fill them with the cream. For that get a thin piping bag tip and poke 3 holes along the Eclair. Now just fill the eclair at those holes and afterward, dip them into the icing. To ensure the icing is even, you can simply use a finger and spread on some more icing.

Footer:

Okay okay yes I know, this is way too long for steemit but whatever I want to write down my recipes and steemit is as good as any other blogging site. So yes the length of this post will probably scare everyone away (at least the 10 views that I get LOL) but ey, if somebody ever wants a detailed eclair recipe. He will find it here. But don't worry those long post won't become the norm. For a matter of fact, I already got another recipe post ready for the weekend and that one will be far simpler and shorter. So look out for that one, because that is going to be just as delicious.

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My other Recipes:

• Jelly Donuts
• Classic Krispy Kreme Donuts
• Cinnamon Rolls

Oh and by the way. If there is a dish which you want me to do because you don't know how it is done or for whatever reason, just let me know and I will do it in the coming weeks. Don't know what to do next week anyways :b.

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FromAboveHeaven