Discover Artisan Chocolate Éclairs

1. Welcome!: Chocolate eclair has been found in French pastry shops since the 19th century. But I think it's about time this delicious classic made its way out of your very own oven. Hi there. My name is Mako and in this class, you'll be learning how to master the three components to making an excellent eclair. From the essential shou pastry to the cream filling, and, of course, the final chocolate glaze. Eclairs have a reputation for being difficult to get right, especially on the first attempt. That's why the upcoming lessons will be guiding you on every step of the process. With detailed but easy to digest instructions, they'll make this recipe a breeze to go through. Help you even further, you will also have access to these lessons measurements and instructions in a written PDF guide to accompany you along all of your baking. With that said, however, this recipe is aimed at more intermediate bakers who already have a bit of experience working with pastries. If you want to hone your skills before jumping into this recipe, be sure to check out my teacher profile where you can find the other classes in the six part series and many more. Do feel free to hit the follow button while you're there to not miss out on the final upcoming recipe on how to make amazing chocolate lava cakes. With that out of the way, however, let's dump straight into the following lesson. 2. Chocolate Éclair Introduction: To make six delicious chocolate declares, we first need to break them down into their four components. First let's take a look at the shou pastry, which is also known as the Ptahu. For this recipe, we are going to use white bread flour as it helps produce a thicker and stronger crust, which is essential to hold the filling. The shou pastry doesn't require a raising agent, but for some additional flavor, I'd highly recommend using sudo starter. It is, however, completely optional. If you do choose to use it, just be sure to prepare it at least 8 hours in advance with an additional 10 grams so that you may refresh it at a later date. Moving on to the pastry cream filling, these are the ingredients you will need. For the chocolate, I highly recommend a quality 70% dark chocolate, especially for such a high effort recipe. Then for the glaze, all you need are these two ingredients. Take note that for the cream, heavy or double thick cream should be used for best results. And finally, as an additional note, be sure to have one more egg and just a bit of milk available for an egg wash. Now that all of your ingredients are hopefully ready, we can begin making our clays. 3. Prepare The Choux Pastry: To begin making the shout pastry, take out a small stove pot and in it add 88 grams of whole or full cream milk, as well as 88 grams of water. Add in 77 grams of cubed unsalted butter with 4 grams of salt, as well as 6 grams of sugar. Then in a separate bowl, measure out 110 grams of white bread flour and add in the optional 40 grams of mature sourdo starter if you had it prepared in advance. Move your pot of liquids over to the stove on medium heat and bring it to a simmer, making sure to give it frequent stirs to prevent any burning. Once you start seeing some bubbling, add your flour and sour dough to the pot and continue mixing for one to 2 minutes until it becomes incorporated into a dough. When that is done, switch off the heat and move your newly formed dough into a large bowl. You can now begin adding three large eggs, one at a time and mixing each one in fully before adding the next. It will start off looking quite lumpy, but as the emulsion forms between the egg and the dough, it will begin taking on a nice glossy sheen and a smooth texture. Once your shout pastry has finished being prepared, cover the bowl with a wet cloth and take out a baking tray to line it side to side with parchment paper. We are now going to be piping out the shoot pastry for which you will need a piping bag and a wide opening nozzle. If you don't have one available, I can also show you a more DIY approach using an empty water bottle. Just ensure the opening is wide enough at roughly 2 centimeters in width. Cut open the top section, leaving enough space below the bottle cap to get a nice seal in the bag. You should be left with something like this. You can then use a plastic freezer bag as an alternative for a piping bag. Just nip a small hole into the corner and carefully push in the bottle head. Just ensure it doesn't tear to get a strong seal around the lip of the bottle. And there you have an improvised piping bag and nozzle. Add your dough to the bag and then begin piping the show pastry into three parallel strips, roughly 30 centimeters in length. When that is done, prepare an egg wash consisting of one whole egg mixed with 5 grams of milk. Apply it lightly to the surface of your show pastry and then move your tray into the freezer for 2 hours. While you're waiting for that to cool down, you'll have time to prepare your pastry cream, so we'll be exploring how to do that in the next lesson. 4. Make The Pastry Cream: For the pastry cream, we are going to need three egg yolks. And to do that, first crack your eggs into a small bowl, taking care not to break the yolk. Then using a clean hand, scoop out each individual yolk and place them in a large bowl to remove the egg white. To that add 45 grams of sugar, as well as 14 grams of cornstarch, which will help thicken the pastry cream later on. Give that a quick whisk until incorporated, and then measure out 83 grams of 70% dark chocolate and break it into cubes so that it is easier to melt. Once everything has been measured, add 188 grams of full cream or whole milk to a small pot and place it on your stove at low to medium heat. When the milk begins to simmer, switch the heat off and begin adding the heated milk to the egg mixture, one tablespoon at a time. This will allow us to slowly bring up the temperature of the egg mixture without cooking the eggs. Just be sure to whisk until the milk is incorporated into the mixture before adding more. Once you've slowly added in half of your milk, pour in the remainder and whisk for an additional 30 seconds. Pour all the contents of your bowl back into the pot and place it on your stove at low to medium heat once again. This time, add in all of your cube chocolate and begin stirring continuously with a large spoon or spatula. Just make sure to scrape the bottom of your pot while stirring as it can very easily burn at this point. The pastry cream will begin to rapidly thicken, and when that happens, take it off the heat completely and continue stirring. When you are done, you should be left with a rich and smooth pasture cream such as this. Move the cream over to a cool bowl and cover the top using a lid or plastic wrap before placing it into your freezer for 5 minutes. When those 5 minutes are done, move it over to the fridge for at least 30 minutes so that it can continue cooling down without freezing solid. 5. Bake The Choux Pastry: Once the shout pastry has finished, it's 2 hours in the freezer, you can preheat your oven to 220 degrees Celsius or 428 degrees Fahrenheit for 20 minutes. In order to prevent the bottom of your shoot pastry from burning, you'll also need to add a baking tray with approximately two cups of water or just enough to fully cover the surface. Move that baking tray to the bottom of your preheating oven so that I can come up to temperature. While your oven is warming up, you may take your frozen shoot pastry out of the freezer and using a sharp knife, cut each strip in half. Place each piece in diagonal rows like this, replacing the parchment paper if torn or damaged. If your oven hasn't yet fully preheated, cover the pastry with another baking tray to prevent it from drying out. Once the oven is ready, place your baking tray into a middle rack in your oven to bake at 220 degrees Celsius or 428 degrees Fahrenheit for 15 minutes. Just be careful when opening your oven, not to get your face blasted with hot steam. When those 50 minutes are up, remove the tray of water from your oven and then rotate your pastry tray around so that they bake evenly on both sides. Drop the temperature to 190 degrees Celsius or 374 degrees Fahrenheit and continue baking for 20 to 25 minutes or until a beautiful golden brown. 6. Prepare the Chocolate Glaze: Once your shout pastries have finished baking, let them cool off at room temperature on a metal rack for about 10 minutes. While you are waiting for that, you may also take out your pastry cream from the fridge and allow it to come up to room temperature. While your shut pastry is busy cooling down, it's time to prepare the final and easiest component of our clase, the chocolate glaze. Into a small pot, add 105 grams of heavy or double thick cream and place that on your stove at low to medium heat. As soon as the cream begins to simmer, switch the heat off and add in 100 grams of cubed 70% dark chocolate. Stir until the chocolate is fully incorporated into the cream, and there you have it. Your chocolate glaze is complete, and it's now time to finally assemble your clays in the next lesson. 7. Assemble your Chocolate Eclairs: Depending on your fridge or the ambient temperature where you live, you may need to warm the pastry cream back up so that it is easy to pipe into your clairs. If the texture feels too viscous, give it about 20 seconds in the microwave to soften it out. For the piping, you can use the same trick as before, but you will need a more narrow nozzle, something closer to half a centimeter in width. If you don't have one, then you can also substitute it with a straw, cut to 5 centimeters in length and a rubber band to create the seal. Once your piping bag is ready, add in your smooth pastry cream filling, and then also move your chocolate glaze into a sufficiently white container to make it easy to apply to your eclair. When all the components are ready, begin cutting three 1 centimeter wide holes into the bottom of your show pastry, making sure not to cut too deep. All that's left for you to do now is to generously pipe the pastry cream into the base of the eclair at each perforation. Once you're happy, the clay has been filled up as much as possible without breaking the pastry, keep it topside down to evenly apply the chocolate glaze. From there, simply repeat this process with all remaining clays. 8. Chocolate Eclair Conclusion: Feel free to add any remaining glaze to the top of your completed éclairs and let it rest for 3 minutes until set if you're patient enough. In French, éclair means lightning, and they call it that because you can eat it in a flash. While I'm not entirely sure that's the true meaning behind the name, in practice, there is a lot of truth to it. These chocolate éclairs are such a delicious treat pulled straight from childhood, and I truly hope you enjoyed making them as much as I have. Can be a bit tricky at times, but the end result is always so incredibly worth it. There is still one more amazing recipe to try out in this series, so I do hope you will join me one more time so that we can make this delicious chocolate lava cake. If you have enjoyed this class, please do feel free to leave a review with your thoughts. And before you leave, don't forget to share pictures of your own chocolate creations in the project section below.