Pastry Cream Eclairs and Swan Eclairs

Pastry Cream

Cream Mixture:

*1/2 quart Whipping Cream
*2 ounces Sugar

Whisk together in a sauce pan the whipping cream and sugar and bring just to a boil on medium heat and remove from heat.

Egg Mixture:

*3 Egg Yolks
*2 Whole Eggs
*1.3 ounces Cornstarch
*2 ounces Sugar

*1 ounce Butter, room temperature
*1/2 tablespoon Vanilla Extract

In a mixing bowl whisk together the whole eggs, egg yolks, cornstarch and sugar until smooth. Then whisk this egg mixture while slowly tempering the egg mixture by slowly adding hot cream mixture to the egg mixture, making sure to whisk the whole time.

In a stand mixer add the above combined mixture and add the butter, vanilla and whip on medium until smooth. Cool Pastry Cream Quickly, pouring pastry cream in by 9×12 glass baking dish. (We put our baking dish with cream out in the snow to cool, covered with Saran Wrap/plastic film so it doesn’t develop a crust/skin. Place cooled pastry cream in an airtight container until ready to fill eclairs. Pipe the pastry cream into pre-made eclairs using a pastry bag with round tip. (Poke the round pastry tip into eclair and fill eclairs with chilled pastry cream.)

Recipe adapted from Professional Baking, Wayne Gisslen

Eclair Paste

Recipe adapted from On Cooking Cook Book

Pre-heat the oven 425*F.

*1 cup Milk
*1 cup Water
*1 teaspoons Salt
*2 teaspoons Granulated Sugar
*14 tablespoons or 7 1/2 ounces Butter
*1 cup All-purpose Flour*6-9 Eggs, add one at a time until mixture is shiny and forms strains that don’t break while mixing, so you may not need all 9 eggs. (We only needed 6, it depends on the moisture level in the air and flour.

In a medium sauce pan on medium heat bring to a boil the milk, water, salt, sugar and butter being completely melted before removing from heat. Add the flour all at once. Stir until it forms a soft ball or paste.

Using a disposable pastry bag with a hole size that is used when adding on a tip to your pastry bag (or about a 1/2 inch off the tip of a new disposable pastry bag or cut hole for desired for the eclair size of your choice.). Place pastry paste into pastry bag and pipe sized desired onto cooking sprayed or Silpat covered half baking sheet.

Bake the Eclairs at 425*F. for 10 minutes. Then reduce heat to 375*F. for 10 more minutes and then bake 10 more minutes at 325*F. for 10 minutes. Do not open oven during baking time. After the full 30 minutes check to see if they have golden brown edges and then if needed, check by touch. (Ours needed an extra 6 minutes.) Continuing baking as needed at 325*F. until done.

Remove Eclairs from oven and poke each eclair with knife or poke a few holes with toothpick to release moisture from Eclairs, leave on the baking sheet to cool or turn off oven and place Eclairs back in oven for 15-30 minutes with oven door opened slightly. Then remove from oven and cool completely before filling with pastry cream. Hopefully there will be no collapsed Eclairs. (Remove some of the inside of the Eclairs, if desired.)

Slice off the very top of the Eclairs (cut the top in half again if making the swans, for wings) and add small thin layer ganache to the eclair bottom of each eclair,then fill with pastry cream and top with piped whipped cream. Replace tops with the eclair swan wings or round/rectangle tops. Sprinkle swan Eclairs with powdered sugar and the ganache for the round/rectangle filled eclairs.

Whipped Cream Topping

*2 cups whipping Cream
*1/4 cup Powdered Sugar
*1 teaspoon Clear Vanilla

Whip with the above ingredients on medium speed in a bowl/stand mixer until the mixture is whipped and forms stiff peaks. Scoop whipped cream into tall glass with pastry bag with star tip. (We use a tall glass placing inside the glass the pastry bag with tip and fold the top of the bag over the edge of the glass for easy filling of the whipped cream until bag is 2/3 full, twist end and pipe onto filled Eclairs.

Ganache

Chocolate Ganache

*3/4 cup Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips
*1/2 cup Heavy Cream or I used Whipping Cream and it turned out great
*1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
Put the above ingredients in a double boiler (except for vanilla extract) on medium low heat until melted and chocolate looks glossy then add vanilla extract. Let cool and Spoon or drizzle in bottoms and on top of Eclairs.

Pastry Cream

Eclair Paste

Baked Eclairs

Also See Swan Eclairs

Enjoy!

Jessica and Lindy