Eclairs - 10 home-made recipes

Eclairs are a treat familiar to everyone since childhood. They are oblong-shaped cakes filled with cream and sprinkled with glaze. The dough for this dessert needs a custard, prepared on the basis of butter or margarine, eggs, water and flour. But with the fillings, you can experiment and use various formulations, depending on personal preferences. Consider the most common recipes for eclairs with different fillers.

Classic custard eclairs

In the classic version, eclairs are made with custard filling.

To prepare goodies you will need:

For the test:

• 4 eggs;
• half a pack of fatty oil;
• 0.25 liters of water;
• 150 g of good quality flour;
• 5 g of granulated sugar;
• 2 g of salt.

For filler:

• a carton of milk;
• a pair of eggs;
• 200 g of granulated sugar;
• 150 g of flour;
• 40 gram slice of oil;
• a little vanilla.

For glaze:

• half a lemon;
• 20 ml of water;
• 50–70 g of powdered sugar.

Operating procedure:

1. First you need to prepare a custard for eclairs. When the time comes to fill the cakes, he should have cooled down. The first step is to boil 2/3 of the above volume of milk.
2. Then combine the remaining milk with eggs, introduce flour and vanillin. Mix the whole mass thoroughly.
3. Pour boiled milk into the resulting composition with a thin stream, without stopping mixing. Bring the mass to a boil over low heat.
4. As soon as the first bubbles appear, remove the container from the burner and transfer a piece of fatty oil into it.
5. While the cream is getting cold, prepare a custard dough for eclairs. Fill a saucepan with water, pour sugar and a little salt.Put butter chopped into pieces here (you can use high-quality margarine) and send to the stove.
6. When the mass becomes homogeneous, slowly pour the flour with a spoon, stir the base with a spatula, and then allow to cool.
7. Put eggs one at a time. Each subsequent one can be added only when the dough completely “eats” the previous one.
8. Send the creamy base inside the confectionery bag with the nozzle in the form of an asterisk and squeeze out strips of dough up to 7 cm long in the shape of tracing paper. It is important that they are spacious, because the cakes will substantially “grow” during baking.
9. Place the pan in the oven, bake the eclairs and allow them to cool slightly. After, fill them with cream using a syringe.
10. When the servings are ready, make icing for the eclairs: squeeze the juice from half a lemon, add water and powdered sugar, mix until smooth and pour the servings.

Important! To make the cakes lush, you can put the pan in the oven compartment only after it warms up to 180-200 degrees.

Traditional french eclairs

Since France is considered the birthplace of eclairs, one cannot ignore the method of preparing cream for such a dessert, which is used by confectioners of this country.

In the process of work you will need:

• choux pastry;
• 6 egg yolks;
• 2 tablespoons of starch;
• 400 ml of milk;
• 100-120 g of sugar;
• vanilla.

Work sequence:

1. Bake cakes and leave on a tray to cool.
2. Stir the yolks with starch, then add 100 ml of milk and beat the mass with a whisk.
3. Pour the remaining milk into a saucepan, add sugar and vanilla, boil.
4. Gently pour boiling milk into the prepared egg-starch mixture, stirring constantly. Place on a stove, bring to a boil, and then remove from heat.
5. Cool the composition, transfer to a bag and fill pre-baked eclairs.

Cakes made with this filling will not lose freshness and airiness within 36 hours.

Perfect Choux Dough For Eclairs

What is the perfect dough for eclairs? Each culinary specialist understands this in his own way, but in this section we will consider the recipe for the foundation, which even an inexperienced housewife will cope with. In addition, this composition does not contain eggs, and people who are forbidden for one reason or another to use this product will enjoy this dessert.

To create the foundation you will need:

• 400 ml of milk;
• pack of butter or margarine;
• 60 g of sugar;
• 3-4 cups flour;
• 10 g pressed yeast;
• 5 g of baking soda.

Work sequence:

1. Heat the milk in a pan until the first bubbles appear, and then add butter or margarine and granulated sugar to it. Continue cooking until the components have dissolved.
2. Cool the mixture and then mix with a glass of flour until smooth.
3. In a separate bowl, combine the pressed yeast with a small amount of milk and wait a quarter of an hour until a light foam appears.
4. Mix the yeast with a cooled base, introduce soda, knead and leave to rise for half an hour. The dough should not stick to your hands.

When the base is ready, it remains only to lay out the portions on a trays laid with tracing paper and send them to bake in a red-hot oven.

Eclairs with condensed milk

Another popular eclair filler is condensed milk.

For such a dessert you will need:

• base for cakes;
• can of boiled condensed milk;
• 80–110 g of butter;
• a teaspoon of brandy or liquor.

Work process:

1. Cook the eclairs, carefully transfer to a dish and leave to cool.
2. Cut the butter into slices and place in a warm place so that it melts.
3. Transfer the condensed milk into a blender bowl, add the fatty composition, cognac or liquor and beat until the mass becomes homogeneous.
4. Fill the pastry syringe with cream and inject the filling into the cakes.

If the dessert is prepared for children, it is better not to use alcohol, but to make the cream only from condensed milk and butter.

Butter cream dessert

It is possible to prepare butter cream for eclairs in different ways by adding fruit or berry puree, condensed milk, cocoa, cottage cheese or soft cheese to the main ingredient. Consider a dessert recipe with butter and cheese filling.

For cooking you will need:

• custard base;
• 100 g butter;
• 100 g soft cheese;
• sugar.

Work sequence:

1. Bake the eclairs and put them on a plate to cool.
2. Soften butter, mix with cheese and granulated sugar, mix until smooth.
3. When the sugar has completely dissolved, transfer the cream to a syringe or pastry bag and fill the servings.

In a similar way, you can make an oil filler with other additives.

Chocolate eclairs

Chocolate is loved not only by children, but also by adults, and therefore cakes with such a filling will not leave anyone indifferent.

To create a dessert you will need:

• choux pastry;
• boiled condensed milk;
• 100 g butter;
• a tablespoon of cocoa;
• vanilla.

Procedure:

1. Bake the base for the cakes and cool.
2. Soften the oil, mix with condensed milk and beat with a mixer until smooth.
3. Add cocoa powder, a pinch of vanilla and mix the cream.
4. Using a syringe or pastry bag, inject filler into pastries.

Attention! If it was not possible to purchase boiled condensed milk and had to bring the product to readiness on your own, you need to make sure that the jar is constantly covered with water, and to top up the liquid in time for the evaporated one.

Otherwise, the container will explode, and instead of drinking tea with dessert, the hostess will have to clean up the area.

Cream eclairs at home

Quite often, cream for eclairs is prepared on the basis of cream and emphasize the taste of the filler with fruits or berries.

For such a dessert you will need:

• custard base;
• 250 ml of heavy cream;
• mashed fruit or fresh berries;
• 50 g of powdered sugar.

Order of preparation:

1. Bake the eclairs, put on a tray and let cool.
2. Beat cream with a mixer until a firm foam appears.
3. Add the fruit puree or berries, pour the powdered sugar and bring the mass to homogeneity.
4. Transfer the filler into a syringe or bag and fill the finished cakes.

It’s worth undertaking the preparation of such a dessert only with a mixer, since it’s rather difficult to whip the cream to the desired consistency manually.

Custard cakes with curd filling

As mentioned above, the filling for eclairs can be different, and these cakes with curd cream are especially tasty.

For dessert you will need:

• dough for eclairs;
• cottage cheese;
• fat sour cream;
• sugar;
• a pinch of cinnamon and vanilla.

Operating procedure:

1. Bake the eclairs, put them on a tray and leave to cool.
2. Beat the cottage cheese and sour cream with a mixer until smooth. If it is not possible to use special equipment, it is permissible to pass it through a meat grinder or grind it with a sieve.
3. Mix the curd cream with sugar, add cinnamon and vanilla, put the mixture in a pastry bag and fill it with ready-made cakes.

Tip. To make the dessert not so high-calorie, it is better to use low-fat cottage cheese, and replace sour cream with kefir.

Protein Cream Cakes

Eclairs with protein cream turn out to be unusually tender, airy and very tasty.

To create a dessert you need:

• choux pastry;
• 5 egg whites
• 180–220 g of sugar;
• 30 g cream;
• a pinch of vanilla.

Order of preparation:

1. Bake the cakes and let them cool.
2. Beat whites with sugar in a strong foam, leaving 30–40 g of sand.
3. Dissolve the remaining sugar in cream, warmed to room temperature.
4. Mix the prepared parts of the cream, transfer to a syringe and fill the cakes.

Attention! It is necessary to lay the filling in eclairs as soon as it is ready, otherwise the protein mixture will lose its airiness.

Dessert with caramel filling

A great addition to the air test will be caramel filling.

To make a dessert, you will need:

• custard base;
• 50 g butter;
• 150-180 ml of milk;
• 180 ml cream with a fat content of at least 30%;
• 120 g of granulated sugar;
• 15–20 gelatin granules;
• 2 tablespoons of water;
• a few drops of lemon juice.

Cooking order:

1. Bake a portion of custard dough and cool.
2. Boil milk and water in separate pots.
3. Pour sugar in a saucepan with water, add lemon juice and cook over low heat until the sand melts.
4. Pour milk into a mass with a thin stream, without stopping stirring. Put butter and gelatin and cook until the latter dissolves.
5. Beat the cream until splendid, mix with the cooled caramel, and then fill the cakes with the mass.

On a note. You can decorate ready-made eclairs not only with glaze prepared according to a traditional recipe, but also sprinkle with powdered sugar or simply pour over melted chocolate.

How to fill eclairs with a cream with a syringe and without a syringe?

To fill the eclairs with cream, it is better to use a syringe. To do this, in the central part on the bottom of each portion, a small hole is made through which the filling is introduced. But some housewives prefer to fill the cakes, making a small incision on top.

But what to do when there is no special device at hand?

In this case, you can start eclairs in the following ways:

1. Use a large medical syringe by removing the needle from it and putting the cream inside.
2. Start the dessert with a pastry bag. If it was also not at hand, you can use any empty packaging with a spout-dispenser (for example, from mayonnaise or condensed milk). Cut off the bottom and remove the remnants of the product that was previously there and thoroughly wash it from the inside.
3. Cut off the top from the cakes, put the cream inside with a teaspoon, and then put the “lid” back in place.

To mask the hole through which the filler was introduced, eclairs are abundantly sprinkled with icing sugar or icing is used.