Remember my “What should I cook at home” poll?
Chocolate éclairs won with 37.5%!

I’d never made choux pastry before (pronounced “shoo”).
Now I know it sounds all fancy and French, but I promise it’s easy.

Once the pastry is ready you have to pipe it into lengths.
You can decide whether you want slim ones or chunky ones.
I made a mix of both.

The pastries bake in the oven for a while and then you slit them (to release the hot air and let the insides cook) and pop them back into the oven for a few more minutes.

Once cooled, you fill them with lightly sweetened whipped cream (to-die-for) and slather the tops with melted dark chocolate.

There was just one problem. I made only 30.
Obviously that was nowhere near enough 🙂

Chocolate Éclairs
Adapted from: Step by step Baking (Gorgeous book- get your hands on it!)

Prep time: 30 mins
Cook time: 30 mins
Makes: 30 minis or 20 mediums

Ingredients:

75 g butter , salted is fine (plus a bit more)
130 g flour, sifted
3 eggs
250 ml thick cream, whipped till stiff, and kept chilled
100 g dark chocolate

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 200º C. Pour 200 ml water into a pan and add the butter. Bring to a light boil and remove from the heat. Add the flour and stir well with a spatula until combined.
2. Let this cool slightly. Crack the eggs into a small bowl and beat gently. Add the beaten eggs, a little at a time, into the slightly cooled flour mixture and mix well. The dough should come together now and leave the sides of the pan. If it’s too sticky, add a little more butter and mix until it does.
3. Line 2 baking sheets with baking paper. Transfer the choux pastry dough into a piping bag (or a zip lock bag-you can snip the end off) and pipe lengths of the pastry onto the baking sheet. They should be about 3–4 cm long, and you can vary the thickness depending on whether you want slim ones or chunky ones. You will need to cut off the lengths with scissors as you pipe them.
4. Bake for 25 minutes and then remove from the oven and make a slit along the side of each éclair. Return them to the oven for another 5 minutes.
5. Remove and cool on a wire rack. Pipe whipped cream inside the open side of each éclair. Melt the chocolate in a double boiler, and spoon the warm chocolate over the top of each éclair. Eat 🙂