EPICURIOUS: THE WORLD IS YOUR ECLAIR

With so many French franken-desserts dominating the foodscape in the past decade — think cronuts and cruffins — the eclair has often been eclipsed by the ‘it’ dessert of the moment. And unfairly so!
With its deliciously soft, creamy centre and decadent chocolate icing, the classic eclair eschews all the superficial trendiness. But while other food trends have come and gone (I’m looking at you, cronut), the eclair is still going strong.
To boot, the eclair had its own modern make-over in the 2010s, thanks to Christophe Adam of L’Eclair de Genie. The famed pastry chef made eclairs trendy again with his crazy, modern iterations — at his patisserie you could find contemporary, unusual flavours, such as yuzu, orange, caramel popcorn etc and, apparently, Adam came up with over a hundred different recipes/interpretations of this classic dessert. Of course, if you have a hankering for the traditional, there is still the good, old chocolate eclair.
We owe the eclair, too, to another famous French baker. According to food historians, the dessert was invented by renowned pastry chef Antonin Carême (who is believed to have also created another French classic dessert, mille-feuille) in the early 1800s in Lyon. The pâtissier was patronised by the elite of his time, such as Napoleon, Britain’s King George IV and Tsar Alexander I of Russia.
Two hundred years later and the popularity of Carême’s creation has still not waned — the eclair, it seems, is here to stay.
Chocolate Eclairs
While crazy flavour combinations are best left to pastry chefs, there is no reason one can’t whip up the classic version at home. The eclair isn’t as complicated as it appears — the most time-consuming step, making the choux pastry, can be done up to three days ahead of time. Plus, once you’ve mastered the basics, there is no reason not to experiment with different cream fillings (chocolate, mango, strawberry) and ganache toppings. After all, the world is your eclair.
Eclairs (Makes 16 eclairs)
Ingredients
½ cup or 8 tablespoons unsalted butter
½ cup milk
½ cup water
¼ teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons sugar
1 cup all-purpose/white flour
4 eggs
1 egg and 1 tablespoon milk for the egg wash
For the Cream Filling
4 egg yolks
3 tablespoons cornstarch
1 cup milk
1 cup cream
½ cup sugar
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 tablespoon vanilla essence
¼ teaspoon salt
For the chocolate ganache
½ cup cream
2/3 cup bittersweet chocolate or 1/3 cup milk and 1/3 cup dark chocolate
For the white drizzle
¼ cup cream
4 tablespoons milk
½ teaspoon sugar

Method
Published in Dawn, EOS, September 1st, 2024