My Easy Chocolate Eclairs
Posted on March 18, 2012 by Nina Timm in baked goods
My easy Chocolate eclairs? What makes this recipes so special that I can claim it for myself? Trial and error and 2 batches of flop eclairs. In my family if you have learned something the hard way, we call it “paying school fees”, because after all lessons are learned in school and in my case the school of life…. Now, what does life lessons and chocolate eclairs have in common……
well, I have learned that not all recipes on Google are flop proof and for me as a recipe developer and a recipe writer, I’ve yet again realized how crucial it is to test…and test…and test recipes before you publish them.Such an enormous responsibility!
There are so many so-called foodies out there and with food bloggers posting recipes almost everyday, the Internet is updated and loaded with new recipes on a daily basis. Sadly not all of those recipes work. Heck, I have been told one of my recipes does not work and only after much drama and testing did I see when posting the image, it cut off the 1 from 150gr of sugar, thus changing it to 50gr of sugar. These things happen, but not often, because everything that you see on my blog, I have cooked and my family has eaten, so I know the recipe works.
Which brings me back the chocolate eclairs. The first recipe I printed off the Internet, had a pretty photograph with it and based on the image, I thought the recipe had to work….WRONG! The result was flat, crumpet-like biscuits which the children would not even eat as it was not sweet enough. The second recipe left me with soft, soggy eclairs and I never even bothered to fill them with cream.
I wanted hollow choux buns, hard on the outside and golden brown in color. Then, I remembered that just like a good old Victoria sponge cake and just like my easy homemade puff pastry, there are certain formulas in baking that never change. If you know them, you are destined for success in the kitchen. I had the knowledge already, all I had to do, was to put it to the test. So next time you want a recipe, search within yourself first, try and remember what your mom or gran told you, then you can, like me also talk about “My Easy Eclairs!”
My Easy Chocolate Eclairs
makes 24 eclairs of about 10cm long
For the Choux buns
250 ml boiling water
125 ml butter
250 ml cake flour
3 jumbo eggs or 4 large
For the filling
250 ml cream – whipped
2 tbsp caster sugar
100gr dark chocolate – melted
Preheat the oven to 180C. Prepare a baking sheet by spraying it with non-stick spray or lining it with baking paper. Boil the water in a small pot and add the butter and allow to melt. Add all the cake flour in at once and stir with a wooden spoon until the mixture comes away from the sides of the pot. Remove from the heat and place the mixture in the bowl of your mixer. Beat the flour mixture for about 1 minute so that it can cool and then add the eggs one by one, beating in between each addition of eggs. Spoon the mixture into a piping bag and pipe 10cm long choux buns on the baking paper. Bake for 25 minutes, remove from the oven and make a small cut on the side of each choux bun to release the steam. Place back in the oven, with heat now reduced to 160C. Bake for another 5 minutes or until choux buns have now hardened. Remove from the oven and allow to cool on a wire rack.
Keep in an airtight container until needed.
To fill: Whip the cream with the caster sugar and pipe into the choux buns. Melt the chocolate in a small bowl over a pot of hot water and then dip each eclair into the chocolate. One the eclairs are filled they do not stay hard for long, so do not make to long in advance.
I tried to make eclairs once and failed miserably. Maybe I should give it another try 🙂
Hi Nina, The beating of the mixture for 1 minute and the adding of eggs to hand beaten or with electric beater?
I do mine in the Kenwood!
Oh terrible, first time Ive tried choux pastry. All was going well, till I put the mixture into my kenwood mixer, then it was like water mixture after adding each egg! Don’t like wasting food, so I added more flour so it went like a dough. mmmmmmmmmmmm nice pizza base, crunchy. Will be trying again without the kenwood!.
its definitely easier w/ egg beater… will take long via hand beaten. really just personal preference otherwise…..
Wow, thank you so much for this, tried it for the first time and my family enjoyed it so much! I’m so impressed with myself! All thanx to this awesome receipe!
I also failed miserably with this recipy, should have used my tried & tested one.
June, I tried the recipe again! the secret is beating well after every egg addition and also use only large eggs.
Ben, these cannot flop, I promise!!!
Do give them a try and let me know!!
I have made eclairs once and it was so much fun. yours look AMAZING Nina.
i have tried to make eclairs and failed 3 times. How thick must the choux mix be?
Hello Marie
It must definitely be cake flour….the pastry must be stiff enough to go into a piping bag and not run out. I make this recipe so often and it has never failed me!
Hello
Can I double up the recipe to make lots?
I find you have to let the mixture cool before adding the eggs or the eggs cook and then they will not rise. S.
and must it be cake flour or can it bee self rising flour?
i make these at work and have no probablem with them they so much fun and staff love them its a good treat for the team 🙂
OMG!!! I am so exited to make these!!could you please email me the link thanks!!!
if cake flour is not available what can i use, whats the mixture for cake flour
I think regular flour, all purpose can work!!
I last tried eclairs 6 yrs ago, which was a flop 3 times in a row an I gave up lol, bt thanx to this recipe, one try an fabulous 🙂
I put cream, banana and caramel in the middle an choc topping, was yum, thank you
What did I do wrong if my mixture is to runny after having added the eggs?
Wow! Ridiculously proud of myself right now! Houston, we have eclairs! Thank you so much for your great recipe! Many people in Vancouver, Canada will be enjoying your recipe this weekend!
My husband’s diabetic but we try to include a normal diet and something sweetto suit the whole family. Could I use sweetener? Instead of sugar?
I think you could because the sugar does not affect the baking!
Thank you! At last the perfect recipe! Made smaller bigne which worked a treat. Sunny Johanbesburg has eclairs!
this chocolate eclairs is really very tasty…… it is like i ate it in the pastry shop…. i like this recipe…… yuummm….mmmmmm….u mmmmmmmm……
:p
As we say here in NZ,mean maori mean…translated fantastic,thanks
Its Christmas and im making chocolate éclairs for the first time. Easiest recipe ever!
I’ve just made this recipe and its super easy!!!!!! Can’t wait to take some to work tomorrow 🙂 Thank you for an awesome recipe!
Instead of cake flour can i use normal flour or bread flour ?
No, I think bread flour will be way to heavy!
Great recipe I use it all the time my family think it’s pretty special as éclair s I usually find pretty hard to master.. but every time without fail.. thanks!
I am 15 years old and my dad begs me too make it. It is not difficult at all just the chocolate part
very simple but best of all very yummy thank-you so much im very proud of myself chocolate eclairs all around lol…
hello like your recipes but the cake flour in recipes cannot get in Australia due to this eg: Bleached flour (cake flour)is banned in Europe and Australia (we understand this is for health reasons). For most cake recipes using cake flour (non-self raising) …you can use plain flour, or some people like to add cornflour (cornstarch) to help reduce the protien content. For 1 cup plain flour remove 2 tablespoons of flour and replace this with 2 tablespoons cornflour – in metric terms use 105g plain flour plus 20g cornflour per 125g flour in the recipe.
hope this can help you.thx’s garry
i made my eclairs the same way u do 4 many yrs now than i lost my recipe abt 6yrs ago and did not make again now that i have grandchildren i wanted them to taste the home made ones,now im so happy i found ur recipe 4 i no its the best recipe.thank u so much
Thank u so much for sharing this recipe. At first I was skeptical, now I’m over the moon that I have succeeded. Many thanks.
Yummmmy it look so easy to make muc I put the chocolate only on top on
This is an extremely quick and easy recipe, very impressive. Just a note of advice- when cutting the slits, make sure not to make them too big as this causes them to flatten and become like pancakes ;D
Can you use Marg instead of butter?
When yu say cake flour is it plain flour or self raising.?
When you say cake flour do you mean plain or self raising flour
Plain flour, definitely not selfraising!
My eclairs turned Sicky inside. And could remove only the upper part.the lower partcpf the eclairs was sticked with the parchment paper
Azeem, not sure what went wrong! Are you sure you used baking/silicone paper! It cannot be wax paper. I have only had good feedback! If you live near CT, I will teach you!
Can marg be used instead of butter
Terri, I have never tried it, but if you want to risk it, use Spar Margarine or Stork Bake – do not use low or medium fat margarine!
Hi.is the cake four a regular All purpise flour, if no, then what can we use instead of cake flour. as am not sure If i get it here in India
All purpose flour is perfect, in SA we refer to it as cake flour!
Hi, mine came out flat as pancakes. Any idea what Im doing wrong. How thick should batter be? Have tried about 3/4 times now…
Thank you for wonderful recipe, great success with it.
Im going to give it a try tonight for a function tomorrow. I hope its successful
Oh dear, 1st time Ive made choux pastry. All was going fine, until I put the mixture into my kenwood, added the eggs one by one, but it went very watery like a batter mix. Added more flour, but ended up with biscuit pizza!
Will try again without the Kenwood!
I tried this for husband came out great thanks for this recipe Nina.
Wow, that is great news, thank you!
High grade flour works the best
Thank you for the tip!
First time I’ve tried to make. Husband was craving them and the shop bought ones seem to have false cream and very hard crusts. Big smiles from hubba and very good result. Can see myself having to make them again!!!