Choux pastry for eclairs can be prepared in different ways. In this article we will present several accessible and simple recipes with which you can make your own delicious base for sweet cakes or savory snacks.
How to prepare choux pastry for eclairs? (recipe step by step)
To make delicious and sweet cakes for a festive or simple dinner table, you don’t need a lot of expensive products and free time.
So, for the choux pastry we will need the following components:
- filtered, settled water - a full glass
- high-grade flour - a full glass;
- country eggs (total weight about 250 g) - 5 pcs.;
- not too coarse iodized salt - ½ dessert spoon;
- unsalted butter as fresh as possible - about 100 g.
Kneading the base on the stove
Choux pastry for eclairs has its name for a reason. After all, in order to mix it, all the ingredients must be boiled on the stove for some time. To do this, place a saucepan with a thick bottom on low heat, then pour settled water into it, add butter and add iodized salt. Next, wait until the cooking fat has completely melted and boil all the ingredients for three minutes.
After all the described actions have been carried out, it is necessary to pour high-grade flour into the bubbling oily liquid and mix it thoroughly with a large spoon. As a result of this, you should get a soft base of uniform consistency.
The final stage in preparing the choux pastry
After thermally treating the choux pastry for eclairs on the stove, it should be removed from the heat and then cooled to 60-70 degrees. This is necessary so that after adding chicken country eggs they do not curl, but are evenly distributed throughout the base.
You can check the temperature of the dough using a thermometer or simply by dipping your finger into it. If you are not very hot, then you can safely add country eggs. Moreover, it is recommended to introduce this ingredient not immediately, but one by one.
Thus, having broken one egg into the dough, it must be mixed with a spoon so that it is completely distributed throughout the dough. Next you should enter the second, third and fourth. Before laying out the fifth egg, you need to pay attention to the consistency of the base. If it is too liquid, then you should not add the mentioned product. If the choux pastry for eclairs remains thick, then you need to add an egg.
After thoroughly mixing all the components, you should have a fairly viscous base.
The process of forming custard products
After the choux pastry for eclairs, photos of which you can see in this article, is well mixed, you can safely begin to shape the products. To do this, you need to take a large sheet, line it with baking paper, and then lay out the base using a regular tablespoon. At the same time, it is not necessary to ensure that you get identical and even balls. After all, under the influence of heat treatment, they will still rise and become beautiful.
Baking eclairs in the oven
The presented recipe for choux pastry for eclairs can be used not only to make delicious and beautiful cakes, but also to prepare aromatic snacks.
Having formed the products, the baking sheet should be immediately placed in the preheated oven. It is recommended to bake them for 25-30 minutes at a temperature of 180 degrees. It should be noted that during such heat treatment it is extremely undesirable to open the oven lid. If you neglect this advice, then all the products may simply settle and remain dull inside.
After the dough has been baked properly, it must be carefully removed from the baking paper and cooled completely. In the future, the products should be used for their intended purpose.
Choux pastry for eclairs: cooking at home together
We talked above about how to make such a base on a kitchen stove. However, you can cook eclairs in a slow cooker. For this we need:
- settled, filtered water - 180 ml;
- high-grade flour - 230 g;
- large village eggs - 4 pcs.;
- not too coarse iodized salt - ½ small spoon;
- unsalted butter as fresh as possible - about 80 g.
Preparing custard base in a slow cooker
Eclairs made from choux pastry always turn out very tender and tasty. To make these cakes, you don't have to put in much effort. After all, they are prepared quite easily and simply.
The principle of creating choux pastry in a multicooker is almost the same as presented above. But if you don’t know how to operate such a device, we’ll tell you about it right now.
So, pour all the filtered water into the multicooker bowl, add salt and add the freshest possible butter. After turning on the baking mode, you need to wait until the cooking fat has melted and all the products have boiled. Next, add light flour to the seething oily mass and mix everything thoroughly until a homogeneous lump is formed. It should be placed in a deep bowl and left aside for a while.
After the base has cooled slightly, you need to break the village eggs one by one. As a result of mixing these components, you should form a viscous mass that comes off well if you lift it with a spoon.
The process of forming and baking products in the oven
How should you properly bake choux pastry for eclairs? The slow cooker recipe does not recommend using this mentioned device. This is not due to the fact that the base will not cook well in it, but because you can only fit a few products in one container.
So, taking a large baking sheet, you need to line it with baking paper. Next, you need to take the viscous choux dough into a culinary syringe and squeeze it out in the form of a thick strip 8-10 centimeters long.
Having formed the eclairs, they should be placed in the oven, which must be preheated to a temperature of 180 degrees. The dough needs to be baked for about half an hour. During this time it should rise well and lightly brown.
How to use baked goods in cooking?
As mentioned above, choux pastry eclairs can be used to make delicious sweet cakes and savory snacks.
For the first course, it is advisable to use oblong products, which must be slightly cut in the side. Through the resulting hole, you can introduce any cream into the eclair using a culinary syringe. So, an ideal option would be a protein or custard filling, which is very often used to prepare various cakes.
After all the cakes are properly formed, they must be decorated using powdered sugar, icing made from cocoa powder or melted chocolate. It is recommended to serve the finished cakes to the table with tea.
As for salty snacks, it is better to take spherical baked goods for them. They should be cut in half so that you end up with some kind of baskets. In the future, they can be filled with black or red caviar, crab stick salad, mayonnaise mixed with garlic, cheese and herbs and other ingredients.
Let's sum it up
Now you know how you can make your own choux pastry using simple and very affordable products. As you dare to note, there is nothing complicated about this.
Thus, if you want to make a delicious dessert or a hearty snack at home, then you can safely use one of the above recipes.
Although the recipe proposed today is quite common, not every housewife prepares homemade eclairs for her family. But this is only because it is difficult to find a suitable, reliable and step-by-step recipe for eclairs so that their preparation becomes simply an art. Today we will try to make those same custard cakes with chocolate icing and custard at home, and believe me, they will taste very different from those you have ever bought in a cafe. Such baking is very beneficial for a children's party. From the specified amount of ingredients you get 15 cakes measuring 10 - 15 centimeters. Which is convenient for drinking tea at school or kindergarten. You will love this recipe for eclairs, written step by step and very precisely. You will cook more than once.
Ingredients for a step-by-step eclair recipe:
For the choux pastry:
- Water - 1 tbsp. (250 ml);
- Flour - 1.25 tbsp. (200 g);
- Eggs - 3 - 4 pcs. (big size);
- Butter (82% fat) - 100 g;
- salt - 1/2 tsp.
For the custard:
- Eggs - 4 pcs;
- Granulated sugar - 1 cup (g);
- Flour - 4 tbsp. l. (without slide, approximately 45 g);
- Vanilla sugar - 2 tsp. (7 g);
- Milk - 500 ml;
- Butter - 20 g.
- Black chocolate - 1 bar;
- Butter - 1 tbsp. l.
So, a step-by-step recipe for eclairs with custard:
1. You will need a very small saucepan for cooking. But it is desirable that it is not enameled. We chose a 1.2 liter cauldron with a ceramic coating. Pour salted water into the selected container and boil. Add the butter, take a wooden spoon or spatula and stir until it comes to a boil.
2. Add flour at the moment when you notice that the butter has melted.
3. Now reduce the heat to low. You can even put the divider on the stove. Mix the dough thoroughly until it looks like plasticine. There should be no small lumps.
4. Wait until the choux pastry for eclairs has cooled halfway and you can start adding eggs one at a time. After adding each egg, the dough needs to be mixed thoroughly, and it is better to do this with a wooden spatula. If you beat in all the eggs at once, it will be difficult to mix the dough to the desired consistency. Do it correctly, that is, as described in the eclair recipe - step by step and clearly.
5. This is what the choux pastry will look like after adding the second egg. Continue using the spatula and add the third egg.
6. This is what the finished choux pastry looks like, it is not liquid, but on the contrary, elastic and holds its shape perfectly. But at the same time, the dough will not be tight. The consistency is like for Easter cakes. If the dough is very steep, then add a fourth egg. Otherwise, it may not bake and the eclairs will not open.
7. Transfer the dough into a pastry bag and remove the nozzle from it. Using a bag we will form eclairs.
8. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. There is no need to lubricate it. Squeeze out so-called “sausages” at least 10 centimeters long from the pastry bag. Preheat the oven very well to 200 degrees.
9. We will bake the eclairs for 30 - 40 minutes in a closed oven. That is, you can’t pull the door! If you placed the custard cakes on a baking sheet, not too densely, and placed it approximately in the center of the oven. So in 30 minutes you will get these delicious eclairs. They will be 2 - 3 times larger than the prepared dough.
10. You can’t imagine a better custard for filling homemade eclairs. Our website already has a step-by-step recipe for custard. prepared one way. And today we will describe a slightly different custard recipe and also very detailed. You can also use this cream for a classic Napoleon cake. and for a no-bake cookie cake. and for many other desserts.
Boil the milk and leave it in the pan for a while.
11. Separate the yolks from the whites. To prepare the cream, we only need this part of the egg.
In one bowl, combine the yolks, granulated sugar, vanilla sugar and flour. We begin to mash everything with a spoon or fork. The most important thing is that the flour is evenly distributed and there are no lumps in the custard later.
Begin adding milk gradually while still stirring. Now your task is to ensure that the sugar is completely dissolved. You will end up with a smooth yellowish liquid.
12. Pour the resulting mixture into a saucepan containing milk and place on fire. You don’t have to turn the heat to low at first, but be sure to stir the cream. If you miss the moment, it will immediately form lumps.
13. When you see that the custard begins to thicken, immediately reduce the heat to the very minimum. After a few minutes, add the oil, stir until it is completely dissolved, remove from heat and leave to cool.
14. You can fill eclairs with custard using a special pastry syringe or simply cut the cake and put the filling there.
15. There should be no problems with chocolate. It makes an excellent glaze for homemade cream eclairs. You can melt chocolate in the microwave. Just crumble it into pieces and add butter. Set the heating time to 30 seconds and then stir the chocolate every time. The action must be repeated until you see that it has melted. You can also melt chocolate in a water bath in the same way.
16. Using a pastry brush, carefully coat the top of the eclairs with chocolate glaze.
The glaze should dry out a little, so leave the cakes on the baking sheet.
We hope you enjoy our step-by-step recipe for eclairs at home. Prepare custard cakes for children for kindergarten, school, or tea party without any effort. And don't forget to check back for the sequel! Soon we will have miniature profiteroles with protein cream in our desserts. To avoid missing out, subscribe to updates!
Eclairs, which are usually made from choux pastry, are a favorite pastry for children and adults, in all parts of the world.
Choux pastry for eclairs has a simple recipe. All that - nothing - a couple of ingredients, and you get a sweet, favorite homemade dough, from which you create your children's favorite delicacy - eclairs, as well as other masterpieces of sweet cooking. Recipes that we have in store for you will help you fully enjoy the taste of wonderful cakes.
All of these initially hollow buns have only one base - choux pastry for eclairs, which is prepared as follows: water, butter and flour are brewed, then eggs are added, according to the recipe. It is this simple technology that allows you to create eclairs, a durable shell that swells thanks to gradually evaporating moisture (the water content in the choux pastry is quite significant), and in the end remains, thanks to the eggs, intact and unharmed.
Secrets of choux pastry for eclairs
By using the secrets we have generously provided, you will find it easier to bake these amazing cakes in the future without spending a lot of time.
Preparing eggs. To know how to prepare the perfect dough, chicken eggs should not be cold, but at the optimal room temperature. Therefore, two hours before preparing the dough, remove them from the refrigerator.
Preparing containers for the “water bath”. Prepare 2 large deep pans, one should fit well on the larger pan and be large enough to cook the dough in it. Fill the pan with water, but not completely, to 2/3 of the volume, and put on fire. Meanwhile, pour 250 milliliters of water into a smaller saucepan, cut the butter into strips, add salt and place the saucepan in a larger saucepan.
Preparation. Allow the butter to completely melt in a water bath, then immediately add all the flour to the butter without removing the small pan from the water. Stirring vigorously all the time, let the flour dissolve in the water and oil, making sure that there are no lumps at all.
When making it, use a wooden spatula, although if you need to make some effort to brew the dough, then use a mixer or other mechanized assistants. Then remove the small saucepan from the stove and continue stirring the future dough for about five minutes. You will see for yourself how gradually the mass becomes more elastic and elastic and takes on exactly the shape that you need for the next stage.
Add the eggs one at a time into the prepared flour mixture, one at a time, remembering to knead the dough each time until it is perfectly lump-free. If you want, you can place the eggs separately in a separate bowl, without mixing the yolk with the white, and then add the egg mass to the dough portionwise - do not forget to stir the dough until completely homogeneous.
Your finished choux pastry should definitely not be liquid, and at the same time not thick. This dough, you yourself will notice, will stretch itself behind the spoon and spread a little when you try to shape it into an eclair.
Choux pastry without milk
This dough is also good to use for sweet profiteroles. It turns out original, and at the same time, neutral, so for this dough you can safely use both salty and sweet filling.
Ingredients:
water - half a glass;
flour - one and a half glasses;
creamy margarine – 150 grams;
salt on the tip of a knife;
chicken eggs - 4 pieces.
Recipe:
Combine water, salt and softened margarine. Bring the mixed ingredients to a boil over the heat. After that, remove the margarine and water from the heat and gradually add the flour, making sure to stir. Put it back on the fire and knead until you get a homogeneous mass. The choux pastry for eclairs should be quite thick and viscous, so it can be kneaded very easily into a homogeneous mass. Once the dough has become homogeneous, immediately remove the dough from the stove and cool slightly aside. After this, beat one egg into the dough.
Knead the dough until it is smooth again. Then beat in the remaining three eggs one at a time and stir the dough with a wooden spatula until the desired thickness is obtained. As a result, you will have a viscous and thick choux pastry with a bright, shiny surface. After greasing special baking paper with butter, place the dough on it. Place the choux pastry for eclairs using a pastry bag or syringe; if you don’t have one, then simply place the dough in tablespoons. Do not forget that the choux pastry for eclairs should increase approximately 2 times in volume during baking.
Eclairs are baked at 200 degrees for about twenty minutes. The readiness of the eclairs is checked with a regular toothpick.
Recipe for classic choux pastry for eclairs
Classic choux pastry for eclairs involves mixing thickened wheat flour or starch, milk and egg mass, with the addition of a stick of butter. However, if there is a need to exclude butter from the cake in order to get a more dietary option, then you don’t have to use it or add lean margarine or butter to the dough.
Ingredients:
milk - half a liter;
a stick of butter;
sugar – sand – full glass:
wheat flour – 2 tablespoons;
egg - 1 piece;
flavoring to taste.
Recipe:
Bring the milk to a boil and set aside to cool. Mix flour and sugar in a separate deep bowl, add the egg - grind everything together properly. Strain the boiled milk into the same mixture in small portions, stir as usual until smooth. Place the mixture on low heat. With continuous stirring, bring the dough to a boil (the mass should “puff”). Remove from heat and add vanillin or lemon essence as a flavoring.
Choux pastry recipe for eclairs with cocoa
Every child, and adults too, love to eat cakes made from sweet choux pastry, where the filling will also be custard or butter cream. We propose to prepare one of the easiest, most successful, and simplest dough recipes, in our opinion. To do this, add one and a half tablespoons of cocoa powder to the dough, and the result will be a delicious chocolate dough.
Ingredients:
wheat flour – 200 grams;
cocoa powder – 1.5 tsp;
chicken eggs - 4 pieces;
milk - half a liter;
granulated sugar – 1 full glass;
vanillin or vanilla sugar – 10 grams;
butter – 200 grams;
table salt – 1 pinch.
Recipe:
Take a stainless steel pan, preferably pour a glass of water, 100 grams of butter and a pinch of salt into it. Place the mixture on the fire and bring to a boil. After removing the future choux pastry from the heat, add about 150 grams of wheat flour, stir quickly using a wooden spoon. The mass should be homogeneous. Without ceasing to stir all the time, return it to the stove and keep it for a few more minutes, but only on low heat with a wooden spoon. Let the mixture cool a little, and then you can transfer the choux pastry for eclairs into the bowl of a food processor so that it can be kneaded well. Once the dough is mixed, beat in the eggs one at a time – 4 pieces. Knead until smooth.
Recipe for lean choux pastry for eclairs
A distinctive feature of the product - lean dough - is that it is completely free of animal fat (milk and butter) and chicken eggs. Lenten choux pastry for eclairs received this name due to the fact that the method of preparing it is slightly different from the usual one.
When brewing dough from flour starch, a paste is obtained that is capable of holding much more water than ordinary flour does, and this, in turn, radically changes the structure, quality and properties of the dough.
Ingredients:
flour - 2 full glasses;
vegetable oil - 2 tbsp. spoons;
boiling water - 1 cup;
table salt.
Recipe:
Mix flour with salt, make a hole in the flour, closer to the center, pour boiled water and vegetable oil into it. After this, stir the dough a little and let it cool a little so that the temperature of the dough is not hot. Then boldly knead the dough until smooth. Let the dough rest for about 15 minutes and only after that the lean dough for eclairs can be rolled out and cakes made from it.
To get lean dough, use equal amounts of boiling water and vegetable oil (200 ml each), two full glasses of wheat flour, a pinch of salt, a teaspoon of baking powder and sugar. Afterwards, do everything as usual when kneading simple choux pastry for eclairs.
Bon appetit!
Ingredients for “Choux pastry for eclairs and profiteroles”:
Recipe for “Choux pastry for eclairs and profiteroles”:
1. Mix milk, water, salt and sugar in a saucepan (preferably with a thick bottom. I have a Zepter saucepan, so you can beat it with a mixer without any problems), add butter, bring to a boil.
2. As soon as the water boils, add all the flour IMMEDIATELY (it is better to sift it first, because then it is saturated with oxygen, and the baking will be more airy). Beat well until the dough becomes soft.
3. Beat for another 2-3 minutes until the dough pulls away from the walls of the pan. We do all this while the pan is on the stove. Form a big ball.
4. Remove the pan from the heat and transfer the dough into a deep bowl. In the photo I have a separate bowl, although it looks the same as the pan (THIS IS A VERY IMPORTANT POINT, because you need to add eggs one at a time for a uniform and light structure of the dough). And we begin to add eggs one at a time, beating until the egg is completely mixed with the dough.
The finished dough should look like this, i.e. the consistency is thick enough that it does not drip from the whisk, but falls slowly.
After this, you can fill the pastry syringe and proceed directly to baking.
5. ADVICE FROM THE CHEF: “it’s best to freeze the preparations. Form either eclairs (approximately 8-9 cm long) or profiteroles (4-5 cm), place them on parchment at a distance of 2-3 cm from each other and put them in the freezer.
I usually do this because I usually make the dough and cream in the evening and bake the next day. It’s convenient to do this because you need to fill the eclairs immediately before serving, otherwise they will become soggy. And fiddling around with preparing dough (even a simple one) is not always convenient. Of course, I take the dough out 20 minutes before baking and just leave it in the refrigerator.
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees (for those with gas - 4), lay out our preparations (if someone is baking right away, use a pastry syringe of the shape you need on a baking sheet covered with parchment).
The chef recommends sprinkling eclairs or profiteroles with crushed almonds and sugar for a sweet filling. I don't always make it, but it turns out delicious.
Here are the profiteroles:
Note: I make profiteroles with different fillings. This time, on a whim, there were walnuts, a lot of garlic, “Astoria” sauce “Onions with sour cream”, paprika, ground red and black pepper, finely grated cheese (my favorite, well, he really likes spicy))) .
And the second filling was with the same sauce, eggs, processed cheese + leftover cheese, garlic and finely chopped chicken salami.
6. Place in the oven and bake for 7-8 minutes (the eclairs should increase in volume and rise, but remain the same in color). Then open the door and continue baking for another 15 minutes until golden brown. After that, I turn off the oven (I have an electric one) and leave them there to cool.
7. That's all, actually. For the filling I use French buttercream. The recipe can be found below. I cut the profiteroles lengthwise and fill them with cream using a culinary syringe. I make the glaze according to AlexEustace's recipe (recipe is also below). I liked it (there are no photos of the finished eclairs, however, I still don’t have time to take a photo, they are eaten instantly))
Bon Appetit everyone!
1) The oven should be opened, no wider than a matchbox. If you open it wide, nothing will save you - they will fall. And you should not slam the oven door and, in general, not shake the stove and the surrounding area.
2) For those who don’t know: stir with a mixer or spoon in only one direction, do not add the next egg until the dough has “eaten” the previous one. Then you can immediately determine by consistency whether you need to add more eggs. As I already wrote, I once needed 6 eggs and 1 yolk to bring the dough to the desired state.
3) Problem with removing baked goods from paper. “It sticks to death. I tried both coated paper and dry paper - the result was the same” - when the eclairs are frozen, they themselves are easily removed from the cling film on which I usually place them before freezing. But in general, as for any baking: I was once taught a long time ago to sprinkle even parchment paper with flour (or semolina). Of course, semolina is not applicable to eclairs (I often use it for biscuits). But there have never been any problems with flour.
4) There was a comment when the eclairs cracked when baked (without freezing). Honestly, I don’t know if freezing was the key factor, but the last time I made profiteroles (those are the photos I post), my dough also cracked. I didn't have time to freeze. I had to bake right away. Another tip: either freeze well or bake right away. I decided to put it in the freezer for at least 20 minutes to “freeze”. As a result, I had to scrape the profiteroles off the film.
5) The flour must be toasted well. This is exactly the “choux” dough. It should look like a smooth, shiny ball. First, when I add flour, I stir with a mixer, then, when the mass already looks like dough, I start working with a wooden spatula (stirring in one direction).
6) If someone sees that the eclairs are not completely baked inside, then you can simply turn off the oven and leave them to stand there. In principle, I always leave mine in the oven to cool. The temperature decreases gradually.
7) In conventional ovens, as a rule, there is no fan. I have it. The instructions describe it as “convection mode”. So, through trial and error, I realized that neither eclairs, nor biscuits, nor yeast dough can be prepared in this mode. It just won't rise. Maybe my hands grow from the wrong place, but I’ve never been able to bake well using convection. 
Consistency of the dough before freezing: the dough should have the structure of mashed potatoes, that is, the dough should not leak out of the syringe, but should hold its shape. In order for the dough to have this consistency, it is not necessary to add 5 eggs, less is possible. 
eclairs after 8 minutes in the oven 
This is what profiteroles look like after 8 minutes in the oven (closed).
Cooking instructions
50 minutes Print
1. Boil 250 ml of water, add oil, salt, bring to a boil.
2. Add flour to boiling water, mix well and cook for 2 minutes. Flour seeder tool Flour must be sifted even if you grind it yourself and guarantee the absence of lumps and pellets. Waking up through the sieve, the flour is loosened, saturated with oxygen, the dough rises better and then has a better texture. You can sift using any fine sieve or, for example, a special OXO seeder, which works on the principle of a meditative rocking chair.
3. Cool the mixture a little.
4. Add one egg, mix well, add the second, mix. Add all the eggs in this manner.
Crib How to check egg quality
5. Cover a baking tray with baking paper (or grease with oil).
Tool Baking paper
For even baking, it is better to place open pies and quiches in the oven on a wire rack, and to prevent the sauce boiling from the heat from dripping between the rods, baking paper will help. For example, the Finns produce a good one - it is quite dense and is already divided into sheets that are easy to get out of the box. And nothing more is required from paper.
6. Using a spoon or using a pastry syringe, pour the dough into tubes 10–11 cm long.
Tool Portion spoon
A serving spoon has many different functions. With its help, you can easily remove the insides with seeds from fruits, and cut out pieces of the correct shape - round, oval and square. It is also useful when serving ready-made dishes, serving sauce or gravy. Portion spoons vary in the type of material they are made from. Stainless steel spoons are optimal for working with vegetables and fruits, and those made from heat-resistant plastic do not damage the surfaces of pans and allow you to serve hot dishes safely and easily.
7. Place in an oven preheated to 180 degrees, bake until golden brown, about 35–40 minutes.
Do not open the oven door during baking.
Tool Oven thermometer
How the oven actually heats up, even if you set a specific temperature, can only be understood with experience. It is better to have a small thermometer on hand that is placed in the oven or simply hung on the grill. And it is better that it shows degrees Celsius and Fahrenheit simultaneously and accurately - like a Swiss watch. A thermometer is important when you need to strictly observe the temperature regime: for example, in the case of baking.
8. Fill the finished cakes with cream using a pastry syringe.
9. You can pour melted chocolate over the cakes and sprinkle with coconut flakes.
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