Dough for eclairs at home: a step by step recipe

2024 Author: Isabella Gilson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:14

In this article we will talk about how to make homemade eclairs. Read the step by step recipe below. But first, a little theory. Choux pastry products are numerous. Among them, there are three types of pastries: eclairs, profiteroles and shu. Their basis from the test makes them related. It is brewed in a special way. During baking, the dough swells due to evaporation of moisture, and internal voids form. The increase in size of the product gave the name to profiteroles (profit means "profit"). And the word "eclair" is translated from French as "lightning". Probably, such a name was given to buns because they swell very quickly. Profiteroles and eclairs are necessarily stuffed with filling, often sweet (custard, protein, butter cream, condensed milk, chocolate). But you can find products stuffed with cottage cheese, mushrooms, minced meat. Shu, due to its small size (up to two centimeters in diameter), is served with broths and soups without filling - like bread or crackers.

Dough for eclairs at home:preliminary steps

Even a novice cook can make it. An important condition for a good custard dough is that when baking, in no case should you open the oven doors. Eggs are another key to success. They must be at room temperature. Therefore, a few hours before we begin to knead the dough for eclairs at home, we will lay out four eggs from the refrigerator. Now let's start looking for two pans of a suitable diameter. It is required that one can fully enter the other and be stably placed on its bottom. In this case, a small saucepan should contain all the dough. You probably already guessed that preparations are underway for a water bath. We will use this culinary technique to brew eclair dough at home.

Steaming

Pour two-thirds of the water into a large pot. We set it on fire. We immerse the smaller one in it. Water must not overflow from the edges of this container. Pour water into a small saucepan too. But the amount determined by the recipe is two hundred and fifty milliliters (a glass). Cut into slices of one hundred grams of butter. Add a pinch of s alt. We wait until the heated water from a large pan melts the butter in a small one. This technique will not allow the fat to burn. The oil will come into contact with the water. We do not take out a small saucepan. We pour two hundred grams of white wheat flour there. This is where the hardest part begins. We need to stir the hot oily water with flour so that not a single lump remains. This should be donewooden spatula. You can also use an immersion mixer. But they need to act very carefully so that the beaters do not spread splashes and flour throughout the kitchen. Numerous recipes for eclairs at home agree on one thing: the dough should be homogeneous, without lumps.

Knead

As soon as the flour is completely combined with the oily liquid, we take out the saucepan from the boiling water. Knead the dough again. We work with a wooden spatula for five minutes. So the dough, firstly, will cool faster, and secondly, it will become more elastic. Now it's time to beat in the eggs. We do this strictly one at a time and constantly knead the mass until completely homogeneous. Cooking dough for eclairs at home is not a problem, the main thing is not to rush and be patient. The mass should not turn out to be either liquid or excessively steep. The dough will spread when you try to shape it, but also slightly reach for a spoon. By the time the kneading is over, the oven should already be preheated. We turn on the fire to two hundred degrees. We cover the baking sheet with parchment paper.

Planting

Now we start baking our eclairs (we have already mastered the dough recipe). Remember that cakes got their name from the ability to rapidly increase in size. Therefore, we place them on a baking sheet in such a way that in the oven the products do not stick together into a single lump. Profiteroles can be planted on parchment paper with an ordinary tablespoon. But eclairs should have an elongated shape of sticks ten centimeters long. Therefore, we cannot do withoutpastry bag. Is there such a device in the house? It doesn't matter: a pastry bag will replace the usual durable plastic bag. We fill it with a test. We clamp the edges. Cut off the end of the cone. Voila! The piping bag is ready to use. Squeeze the dough out of it onto cooking paper. We form sticks five to seven centimeters long, leaving approximately the same distance between them. We send the eclairs to the oven for ten minutes. After that, we reduce the temperature to one hundred and eighty degrees. Bake another twenty minutes. Only then can the oven door be opened.

Semi-finished product

Thus, we got hollow buns. They should be evenly golden, dry on all sides, and when tapped, the dough should make a dull sound, indicating the presence of voids inside. These "blanks" can be stored for quite a long time - several months - in a freezer in an airtight package. In case of unexpected guests, all you have to do is prepare the cream and fill them with ready-made eclairs. The dough recipe will allow it to stay fresh for several days - if you place the blanks in a tightly tied bag. But in any case - whether you prepare the cakes for serving immediately, or hold them for the time being - the finished products must be completely cooled. Since the cream, once in a hot environment, may behave unexpectedly.

Cooking stuffing

Classic eclairs contain in their delicatecavity custard. But this is by no means a hard and fast rule. You can make cakes with any other filling, fill them with boiled condensed milk, jam, Nutella-type chocolate-nut mass. Ideas are countless. Let's take a look at the Italian meringue recipe. This cream is so gentle, almost weightless. With meringue you get very tasty eclairs. It is very easy to do, but you will need four hands. We mix one hundred and thirty grams of sugar and forty milliliters of water. Cook the syrup until it becomes extremely thick, when the caramel threads begin to stretch behind the spoon. The second person at this time beats two proteins with a mixer. The foam should be persistent, but without hard peaks. Pour the syrup into the proteins in a thin stream, without ceasing to work with a mixer at the same speed. When the meringue becomes dense and shiny, you can add some flavor - vanilla or essence.

Serving to the table

Making cream is half the battle. Now they need to stuff the hollow buns. Eclair recipes at home offer two options. The first one is the simplest. Cut the bun in half lengthwise, smear the eclair with cream like a sandwich. The second method requires a confectionery syringe. And the cream in this case should be quite elastic. We make a hole in the crust, we introduce the filler. And the final touch is frosting. It can be chocolate, sugar, caramel. You can decorate the surface of products with coconut, meringue or jelly.

Yulia Vysotskaya: eclairs from a culinary star

Ahow does the famous chef suggest we make cakes? She prefers to replace water with milk. In this case, you can do without a water bath - just heat all the ingredients for the dough over low heat. We also add a little vanilla for flavor. When the dough becomes thick, remove it from the heat and, constantly kneading, introduce four eggs one at a time. You need to bake such buns at two hundred and twenty degrees for the first ten minutes, and then keep at one hundred and ninety Celsius for another quarter of an hour. When creating eclairs step by step, you should pay attention to the cream. We have already said that there are many of his recipes - from classic custard to pistachio or lemon. Vysotskaya suggests making cream for eclairs from cornmeal (25 g), three yolks and powdered sugar (fifty grams). Beat all these ingredients until a white thick foam. We dilute with a glass of milk. Put on fire and bring to a boil. We fill our eclairs with this warm cream. Very tasty!