Homemade Chocolate Eclairs Recipe (2024)

FAQs

What pastry are chocolate eclairs made from? ›

Chocolate éclairs are long, puffy buns stuffed with cream (although in France it's usually creme patissiere) and topped with rich chocolate icing. The buns are made with choux pastry, which unlike normal pastry is made by bringing butter and water to the boil, tipping in the flour and stirring it quickly until smooth.

The main difference lies in the shape; regardless of size, éclairs are oblong and cream puffs are round.

Crisp, delicate eclair shells are filled with silky pastry cream and topped with a decadent, shiny chocolate ganache for a gourmet-level dessert. Making such an iconic pastry at home may feel intimidating.

Actually, they both are made from choux pastry which is eggs, flour, and butter, filled with cream, but different in shapes. We can easily distinguish them! Eclairs are long oblong with some toppings, while choux creams are often small and round pieces like a cabbage.

Choux pastry becomes soggy due to moisture. To prevent eclairs from becoming soggy, it's important to ensure they are fully baked and properly cooled before filling them. Make sure the choux pastry shells are golden brown and crispy.

The Texture Is The Biggest Difference

Bavarian cream involves milk, eggs, sugar, and often vanilla extract, the same as Boston cream. But then the two ingredient lists diverge: Bavarian cream includes heavy cream and gelatin, while Boston cream involves cornstarch.

Bismark. This premium and decadent donut includes more dough, filling and topping due to its rectangular shape. Depending on your location, the name and build of this donut may vary! Down South, this may be called a Long John, and could be unfilled and tossed in powdered sugar or cinnamon sugar.

In other parts of the United States and Canada, such as the Mid-Atlantic and Central Canada, Long Johns are sometimes marketed as "éclairs"; the two pastries look similar but are created with different types of dough (steam-puffed vs. yeast-risen) and sometimes different fillings (the éclair may have chiboust cream).

Choux pastries (i.e. cream puffs, eclairs, etc.) won't rise if the oven temperature is too low. For the pastries to rise properly, the temperature needs to be really high at first so that the steam builds up inside of the dough and causes them to rise and hollow out.

Pâte à choux is, dare I say, unique among doughs because it is cooked (in a saucepan) before baking in the oven (or frying). Adding the eggs in the dough one at a time: this helps forming the structure of the final product; the final batter must be smooth and shiny but not too runny.

What is the name of the dough in eclairs? ›

Pâte à choux is a classic French dough that's used to make a wide range of pastries, from cream puffs to éclairs to cheesy gougères and more. Choux (pronounced like “shoe”) means cabbages in French; the baked puffs resemble small cabbages.

The éclair originated during the nineteenth century in Lyon, France where it was called pain à la duch*esse ('duch*ess-style bread') or petite duch*esse ('little duch*ess') until 1850. The word is first attested both in English and in French in the 1860s.

I didn't realize it at first but churros are essentially a choux pastry dough - the same dough that makes profiteroles, eclairs, and gougères. It's a fun dough to make, and pretty straight forward. The messy step in this recipe is in the frying.

Foods made with choux pastry

This pastry is used to make choux (small puffs), as the name implies, but also profiteroles, croquembouches, éclairs, religieuses, French crullers, beignets, St. Honoré cake, Parisian gnocchi, dumplings, chouquettes (unfilled choux pastry paired with pearl sugar) and gougères.

Choux is a multi-purpose "paste" that hovers somewhere between dough and batter. It's made by cooking flour with water and/or milk and butter, then mixing in eggs off heat to form a pipe-able, spoonable consistency.

Chouquette is a traditional French pastry that looks like a cream puff or éclair.

Eclairs: Oblong choux pastry filled with cream and topped with a glaze or icing. Cream Puffs: Round choux pastry puffs filled with pastry cream and topped with icing or dusted with powdered sugar. Profiteroles: Also a round pastry, but split in half and filled with ice cream then drizzled with a thick chocolate sauce.