Eclairs au chocolat

 

Ingredients (6 servings):

For the chocolate custard:
1 l of whole milk
12 egg yolks
200 g caster sugar
100 g of flour
240 g dark baking chocolate, finely grated

For the choux pastry:
240 ml water
4 g salt
100 g butter cut into pieces
150 g of flour
4 whole eggs + 2 yellow for color
2 tbsp. caster sugar soup for color

For the chocolate icing:
200 g dark baking chocolate
160 g icing sugar
80 g of butter
6 tablespoons water

Preparation:

STEP 1: Prepare the custard:
Heat the milk in a saucepan. In a bowl, whisk the egg yolks and the sugar then add the flour.

Slowly pour the boiling milk without stopping to mix then pour the mixture into the saucepan over low heat and continue to stir vigorously until it thickens.

Remove from heat when the cream is thick enough to see the bottom of the pan then add the grated chocolate and continue to mix off the heat. Then, place the bottom of the pan in a bowl of cold water to cool the cream faster while continuing to mix. When the cream is cold, place in the refrigerator.

STEP 2: Prepare the choux pastry:
Preheat oven to 200 ° C.

Heat the water and the salt in a saucepan and add the butter. When the butter is melted, bring to the boil then remove fat from heat. Add the flour all at once and stir briskly with a spoon. Then put the pan on low heat and continue to mix the dough to dry it until it clearly doesn’t stick to the sides of the pan.

Transfer the dough to a bowl, then add the eggs one by one until a soft paste, shiny and smooth but not too soft.

STEP 3: Bake the choux pastry:
Cover a baking tray with a sheet of parchment paper and with a large pastry bag make thick pastry sticks from 14 to 15 cm long, spaced well apart.

Mix the egg yolk with a tablespoon of sugar and 4 tbsp. of water and brush the dough sticks with the mixture.

Bake in the middle of the oven for 15-20 minutes at 200 ° C.

When the éclairs are cooked, incise them on the side with a knife and let them cool down on a rack.

STEP 4: Garnish the éclairs:
Fill the piping bag with chocolate custard and garnish the eclairs and let them rest on the grid.

STEP 5: Prepare the chocolate icing:
Melt the chocolate over a double boiler just then, still in the water bath, add the icing sugar and butter. Then remove from the water bath and add water, spoonful by spoonful. If the frosting seems too liquid, let cool slightly.

Spread a thick layer of frosting on each éclairs with a metal spatula and let dry.