Coffee Eclairs
Light choux pastry eclair shells filled with smooth coffee pastry cream and topped with a silky chocolate ganache.
Servings: 12
Calories:
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Alter quantities (metric only) 12
Here's what you'll need...
- Eclair tin or a large heavy based baking sheet
- Medium heavy based saucepan
- Cornered wooden spoon or a normal wooden spoon
- Hand mixer with beaters and whisk attachments
- 2 Large piping bags
- 6B piping nozzle or a large round 1A nozzle
- Skewer or cocktail stick
- balloon whisk optional
- Heat proof bowl
- Long piping nozzle or a normal piping tip with a round hole
- Round piping nozzle or something that can pierce a small round hole in the base of the eclairs
Ingredients you'll need...
See blog post for a list of alternatives if you have not got all of the ingredients listed below
Choux Pastry
- Spray oil such as air fryer spray oil
- 60 g White bread flour (7 level tablespoons)
- 1 teaspoon Caster sugar (superfine sugar)
- Pinch of fine salt
- 150 ml Cold water (10 tablespoons)
- 50 g Unsalted butter (3½ tablespoons) - cubed to help it melt quickly
- 90 g Eggs (at room temperature) (about 2 large eggs) - lightly beat 2 eggs and then measure out until you have 90 grams
- 1 tablespoon Icing sugar (confectioner's sugar)
Coffee Cream Patisserie Filling
- 250 ml Full fat milk (1 Cup)
- 2 teaspoon Instant coffee granules or powder
- ¾ tsp Vanilla extract or vanilla bean paste
- 2 Large egg yolks
- 20 g Cornflour (cornstarch - 2½ level tablespoons)
- 50 g Caster sugar (superfine sugar - 4 tablespoons)
- 30 g Unsalted butter (2 level tablespoons)
- 130 g Double cream (heavy cream) - must be cold
Chocolate Ganache
- 80 g Double cream (heavy cream = ⅓ Cup)
- Pinch of fine salt
- 100 g Semi-sweet chocolate (54% cocoa solids) (½ Cup) chopped up into small chunks
Here's what we do...
Choux Pastry
- Tip: get all your ingredients weighted out in advance and ready to go. Choux is quite a quick process and you need to be ready to move to each step swiftly.
- Heat your oven to 180°C Fan/200°C/Gas mark 6/390°F.
- Fit your large piping back with your 6B nozzle.
- Lightly spray your eclair tin with oil. If you are using a baking sheet line it with a piece of grease proof paper.
- Sift together your flour, sugar and salt and set aside.
- Place your cubed butter and water into your saucepan and heat on a low setting until the butter fully melts.
- Turn up the heat and bring the mixture to boiling point, boil very briefly (5 seconds) then remove from the heat and immediately tip in your sifted flour and salt in one go.
- Beat with your wooden spoon until the mixture starts to come together into a paste (about 20 seconds).
- Return the pan to a low heat, and continue to beat for 2 minutes, making sure no lumps of flour remain. You should hear the base of the saucepan sizzle a little if it is hot enough and it will develop a light film of choux pastry over the base.
- By this point your choux should be forming a ball. Place it into your mixing bowl and fit the beaters to your hand mixer. Beat the choux for 2 minutes on a medium setting. It will break up into small bits.
- Set aside to cool for 5 minutes so that when the eggs are added it is no longer hot enough to scramble them.
- Add half of your lightly beaten eggs to the choux and beat until fully mixed in and a paste like consistency is formed.
- Then add nearly all of the rest of the egg mixture and repeat. You will likely need all of the 90 grams of egg mixture, but we do this step slowly so we can check the consistency of the choux along the way. The choux is ready when it it hangs from the beaters in a V shape before slowly falling into the rest of the mixture. Think texture of thickish cake batter.
- Scoop the choux mixture into your prepared piping bag (it can be best to place the piping bag in a large glass in order to steady it).
- Holding your piping bag at a 45 degree angle gently squeeze out chubby fingers of the choux pastry into each cavity of your eclair tin. If you are using a baking sheet then pipe the fingers of about 4 inches in length and just under 1 inch in width, leaving a gap of 2 inches in between for them to spread out.
- Lightly spray the eclairs with oil again and then sift over your icing sugar.
- Bake in your preheated oven for 10 minutes and then turn the heat down to 150°C Fan/170°C/340°F/Gas mark 3 and bake for a further 25 minutes. Don't be tempted to open the oven though, it will ruin them.
- Remove the eclairs from the oven and make a hole at each end using your skewer to allow the steam to escape and for the insides to dry out.
- Return back to the oven for a further 5 minutes. The eclairs are ready when lightly golden in colour all over.
- Place on a cooling rack to fully cool.
Coffee Creme Patisserie Filling
- On a medium setting, heat your milk, coffee and vanilla extract.
- Whilst this is heating add your egg yolk, cornflour and caster sugar to heatproof mixing bowl and whisk together with your balloon whisk for about 30 seconds until pale yellow.
- Once your milk has heated to just below boiling point, i.e. once the first couple of bubbles start to pop on the top, remove it from the heat and gradually start to pour it into you egg mixture, beating constantly with your balloon whisk.
- Then pour it all back into your saucepan and heat on a medium setting until boiling, whilst whisking all of the time. Remove from the heat and stir in the butter until melted.
- Cover with a piece of cling film (plastic wrap) to prevent a skin forming on the coffee custard and leave to fully cool.
- Using the whisk attachment on your hand mixer this time, beat the cream until it forms gentle soft peaks (not stiff peaks).
- Add your cooled coffee custard and mix together.
- Fit your piping bag with your long nozzle (or a small round nozzle) and fill with your coffee pastry cream.
- Using the tip of a small round piping nozzle (or similar implement) make a hole at either end of the underside of each cooled eclair pastry shell.
- Insert your piping nozzle into the hole, as far as you can, and squeeze in the coffee pastry cream until it appears at the entrance to the other hole.
Chocolate ganache
- Place your chopped chocolate into your heatproof bowl.
- Heat your double cream and salt until it just starts to boil, a few bubbles on the top is all you need.
- Pour the cream over the chocolate and allow it to sit untouched for 2 minutes.
- Mix together to form a glossy ganache and then tip each filled eclair into it to form a coating. To get a smooth finish, dip a butter knife into boiling water and run it over the chocolate.
- Allow to cool and then decorate if you wish to. I used gold food glitter on some and sifting icing sugar on others.