An éclair is a pastry made with choux dough filled with a cream and topped with icing. The dough is the same as that used for profiterole. Once cool, the pastry then is filled with a flavoured custard (crème pâtissière), or with whipped cream and then iced.
The word comes from French éclair ‘flash of lightning’, so named because it is eaten quickly (in a flash)
One of the reason why we like having guests around is that we can try new recipes for our blog. And that exactly what we did last week when we had two fronds over.
For this week recipe we thought of a place we visited last Spring whiles in Paris. It was an Eclair Cafe. A place where they only sell coffee and eclair. It was like being in heaven. I am not sure you, but I love eclair. They are soft, sweet, filled with cream, all things I that I like. French pastry are without a doubt the best in the world, there is no one that can match french pastries, Italians are great, but the French are unbeatable in my opinion.
Eclair can be filled with so many variety of flavoured creams, from simple vanilla or whipped cream to a more audaciouys coffee or pistachio like ours today. The icing is also open to thousands of variations, we chose a more traditional dark chocolate topping, to counter balance the pistachio flavour. It tastes wonderful.
Getting the shape right may take a couple of attempts, don’t give up!
Ingredients
- For pistachio cream: Pistachio: 1 cup
- Milk: 1 cup
- Egg yolk: 2
- Sugar: 1/4 cup
- Corn starch: 1 tbsp
- Vanilla extract: 1 tsp
- Double (whip) cream: 200 ml (6.8 fl oz), stored cold
- For pastry: Water: 1 cup
- Butter: 1/2 cup
- Sugar: 1 tbsp
- Salt: 1/2 tsp
- Flour: 1 cup
- Egg: 4
- For chocolate topping:: Dark chocolate: 150 g (5.3 oz), chopped
- Double (whip) cream: 100 g (3.5 oz)
- Pistachio: 4 tbsp, roughly crushed
Method
- Make pistachio cream: Blend the pistachios to become a fine paste using an electric mixer or food processor (about 3-5 mins)
- Meanwhile, boil the milk
- Whisk the egg yolks with sugar, corn starch and vanilla extract until combined
- Slowly pour the hot milk into the egg mixture while whisking it continuously
- Return the mixture into a sauce pan and cook in medium low heat while whisking continuously and fast until the mixture becomes thick and smooth cream
- Add the pistachio paste into the cream and whisk until combined, set aside to chill (in a fridge) for at least 1 hour
- Whisk the whip cream until fluffy and fold it into the chilled pistachio custard cream and set aside
- Make pastry: Pre-heat an oven to 200 C (400 F), line a baking sheet with baking paper
- Boil the water, butter, sugar and salt in a pan then add the flour via a sieve and stir using a spatula over medium-low heat until a thin film forms at the bottom of the pan (about 2 minutes) then off heat. Mix slowly the hot mixture using a (electric) whisker until it becomes cooler then add the eggs one by one into and whisk until the batter is combined
- Fill the batter in a pastry bag fitted with a 2 cm (0.75 inch) plain tip and pipe 10-cm (4 inches) lengths onto the baking sheet to make 12 shells
- Bake for about 20 minutes until golden brown then leave the shells in the oven for an extra 20 minutes to make them dry and crisp. Take them out and leave to cool completely
- For chocolate topping: Cook the cream in low heat with the chopped chocolate and mix until it becomes a smooth thick sauce
- Cut the shells in half length-wise (but do not cut it off) and dip the top in the chocolate sauce and sprinkle some pistachios on top and set aside to chill in a fridge for 30 mins
- Finishing the dish: Open each pastry and fill with the pistachio cream and serve within 8 hours
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