Culture

I made mini chocolate éclairs the other day. Not wanting to brag or anything but they were amazing. Rather than filling them with whipped cream (which you, of course, can do) I filled them with delicious homemade custard. The lesson here is that if you cover your food with enough flowers and artistically sprinkled freeze-dried raspberry crumbs, the entire Facebook world will overlook your shitty icing efforts and praise your excellence!

Choux pastry is pretty simple to make. It doesn’t need to be made at a specific temperature or left to rest for X hours. The way choux pastry works is that the moisture in the batter evaporates during the baking process and forces the pastry outwards, resulting in an expanded pastry stick with a hollow centre. You need to slice these down the side with a sharp knife as soon as they come out of the oven or else the remaining steam will be trapped and cause the pastry to go soggy (not ideal). Make sure you use small eggs (size 5–6) so that the batter isn’t too wet. You can also make bigger fingers as well as circular éclairs; these will, of course, take slightly longer to bake (probably closer to 20 minutes).

Ingredients

Makes 14 mini éclairs

For the Choux:

• 40g butter
  
• ½ cup boiling water
  
• 75g plain flour
  
• 2 small eggs
  
• 2 teaspoons white sugar
  
• ½ teaspoon vanilla bean paste

For the custard:

• 2 small eggs
  
• 65g white sugar
  
• 35g plain flour
  
• 1 cup milk
  
• ½ teaspoon vanilla bean paste

For the chocolate icing:

• 30g butter, melted
  
• ¼ good quality cocoa
  
• 1 cup icing sugar
  
• ¼ teaspoon vanilla bean paste
  
• Couple of splashes of milk

To decorate:

• Freshly picked flowers
  
• Crumbled freeze dried raspberries

Éclairs

1. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees and line a tray with baking paper.
   
2. Melt the butter in a small saucepan, then add the water and bring to the boil. Add in your flour and stir until a ball of dough forms that comes away from the sides of the pan. Transfer you dough ball to your stand mixer (or you could do this by hand).
   
3. Mix in the sugar and vanilla then one egg at a time. Make sure the egg is fully incorporated before the next one is added. Beat until the mixture is smooth.
   
4. Transfer the mixture into a piping bag with a 5mm round tip fitted. Pipe small éclairs out by piping backwards and forth a 7cm or so line. Remove the pressure you place on the bag and make a quick jerking movement back over the line of batter to finish the éclair.
   
5. Bake for 15 minutes or until they have turned golden brown and are hollow sounding. As soon as you remove them from the oven, slice open the side to release the steam. Leave to cool fully.

Custard

Warm the milk over a low heat in a saucepan. Beat together the eggs, sugar and vanilla, then add in the flour. Mix until all the flour has been incorporated. While still mixing, pour in the warm milk. Beat until the flour mixture has dispersed. Return the custard to the saucepan. Warm the custard over a low heat while stirring until it thickens to a pipeable consistency. Be careful not to let it boil. Leave the custard to cool in the fridge so that it further thickens.

Chocolate Icing

Mix all the ingredients together in a small bowl. Add enough milk so that it forms a smooth, pourable consistency. You want to be able to dip the éclairs into it but not have it run all over the place.

Assembly

Using a piping bag, fill the éclairs with a line of cold custard. Carefully dip each éclair into the chocolate icing. Use your finger to spread it around if it needs it. Decorate with a sprinkling of crushed, freeze-dried raspberries and a flower. Keep refrigerated until serving time.