Learning to make eclairs in Paris

(I’m merging Medium accounts and found this on an old account published on September 15, 2016 and I thought why not save all these delicious gifs)

I recently found myself with some free time in Paris and wondering what I should get up to. During a very early jet lagged morning search of attractions and activities I decided to take a cooking class. Croissants and macaroons were sold out so eclairs it is. Eclairs are amazingly delicious and I’ve had a love affair with them for years so it all worked out.

This looks like scrambled eggs! After the base batter is initially mixed we add eggs one at a time, using the spatula like a knife while turning the bowl.

The pastry part of eclairs (pâte à choux) can be used to make all kinds of things including these chouquettes. We sprinkled ours with rock sugar but you could mix this with grated cheese and herbs to make delicious savory appetizers.

Piping the pâte à choux into eclairs.

Egg wash

Time for the filling

more filling stuff

filling continued

Once the filling is mixed you lay it out onto plastic wrap and very loosely cover it.

We made chocolate and pistachio eclairs. My team got stuck with the pistachio. This paste/filling is super gross and I didn’t even try the final product, but hey, I took pics anyway. This is the pistachio filling (as opposed to the chocolate filling above), but you probably already figured that out.

This is the loosely wrapping of the filling I mentioned earlier. I did it wrong and didn’t leave enough room but all was not lost. Once you loosely wrap it, you gently pat it down to spread it out within the given space. This makes it thinner so it cools faster. This package goes into the freezer and then fridge until you are ready to fill the eclairs.

Time to make the glaze. This will become a chocolate ganache.

Smells amazing. Baking these is a whole thing. You start at one temperature and then lower it. And under no circumstances do you open the oven or death becomes eclairs. They are done baking when the bottoms are golden.

Laying out the baked eclair pastries to cool before glazing and stuffing.

Bring the filling back from the fridge, it’s time for stuffing.

Okay so this timeline is a little confusing. One group was doing the chocolate while another was doing the pistachio. The chocolate eclairs need to be stuffed first and then glazed, but it’s the opposite for the pistachio; glazing comes first. The glaze on this toxic sludge looking thing is a fondant with green food colouring (gross). But glazing for both involves dipping the top of the eclair straight into the pot and letting the excess drip off.

wow that seriously looks gross

Okay back to something resembling a thing I would actually eat. We poked three holes on the bottom of each eclair (the pros do it with long needles so they are more elegant looking). We fill the piping with the chocolate filling and start with the middle hole and fill until it can be filled no more then move on to the other two. As the instructor said, “No one wants to bite into a half filled eclair.”

Remember for the chocolate: stuffing first glazing second.

To make them extra pretty we blew gold dust on the pistachio eclairs and silver dust on the chocolate ones.

Final product: a little messy but I think everyone had a good time.

The chouquettes were the only thing I actually liked (I didn’t like the type of chocolate used on the eclairs and I didn’t even try the toxic waste ones). They were so light and airy, I probably could have eaten this whole plate.

This was fun. Would do again.