Éclairs: choux pastry that rises on steam alone
There is no baking powder and no yeast in choux pastry. It rises on steam alone: the water in the dough turns to vapour in the oven, pushes the inside apart and leaves a hollow shell to be filled with cream. Which is why only three things matter — the flour must genuinely be cooked out, the eggs added one at a time, by eye, and the oven door kept shut until the shells have browned. A door opened too early is a common cause of collapsed éclairs.
Your own work in that: 1 h 10 min.
- Cream 20 min
- Choux paste 25 min
- Baking (two trays) 100 min
- Filling and glazing 45 min
Step by step
0 / 7 doneCook the pastry cream
Bring the milk to the boil with the split vanilla pod and let it stand 10 minutes. Whisk the yolks with the sugar and starch, pour in the hot milk in a thin stream while whisking, return it to the pan and cook over medium heat, whisking hard, until it thickens and bubbles for half a minute. Off the heat, whisk in the cold butter.
Ingredients: 500 ml whole milk · 1 pcs vanilla pod · 4 pcs egg yolks · 100 g sugar · 40 g potato starch · 50 g butter
TipThe cream must actually boil, or an enzyme in the yolks breaks the starch down and the cream goes runny after a few hours in the fridge. Half a minute of bubbling is not overkill, it is the condition.
Half a minute of bubbling, only then is it doneChill it under film
Spread the cream in a shallow dish, cover with cling film touching the surface and refrigerate an hour. Film pressed onto the cream, not stretched over the dish, is the simplest way to avoid a skin that will never whisk out smooth again.
Cook out the flour
Bring the water, milk, butter, sugar and salt to the boil in a saucepan. Once the butter has melted and it is boiling, take it off the heat, tip in all the flour at once and beat with a wooden spoon into a smooth ball. Return to low heat and stir 2 minutes, until a thin white film forms on the base of the pan.
Ingredients: 130 ml water · 130 ml milk · 100 g butter · 150 g plain flour · 4 pcs eggs · 1 tsp sugar · 1 pinch salt
TipThat film is the sign the starch has gelatinised and the excess water has gone. Skip this stage and the paste is too wet and the éclairs bake flat.
A white film on the pan base, two minutesBeat in the eggs one at a time
Move the paste to a bowl and cool 10 minutes, stirring — it should be warm, not hot, or the eggs will scramble. Add the eggs one at a time, beating each in fully. Add the last one beaten, in stages: a correct paste falls slowly from the spatula in a V shape rather than dropping off in a blob.
TipEggs vary in size and flours absorb differently. Four eggs is a starting point, not a law — watch the consistency, not the count.
It falls from the spatula in a VPipe and bake
Heat the oven to 200 °C (conventional, no fan). With a star nozzle pipe 12 cm lines, 4 cm apart, cutting the end with a wet knife. Sixteen will not fit on one tray with proper spacing, so bake in two rounds of 8 — keep the rest of the paste covered in the bowl and pipe it just before baking. Bake 15 minutes at 200 °C, then drop to 170 °C and bake another 20 minutes. Throughout all of it, do not open the door.
Ingredients: 130 ml water · 130 ml milk · 100 g butter · 150 g plain flour · 4 pcs eggs · 1 tsp sugar · 1 pinch salt
TipAn open door lets in cold air, the steam condenses and the inflated shells collapse in seconds — irreversibly. Watch through the glass.
12 cm lines, star nozzle, 4 cm apartPierce and dry out
Take them out, pierce each éclair underneath with a small sharp knife and return them to the switched-off oven, door ajar, for 10 minutes. Steam escapes through the hole instead of softening the shell from within. Cool completely on a rack. Heat the oven back up to 200 °C and bake and dry the second tray the same way.
A hole underneath lets the steam outFill and glaze
Whisk the cream smooth and load it into a piping bag with a long narrow nozzle. Fill each éclair through the hole underneath until you feel resistance. Pour hot cream over the chocolate, wait a minute, stir in the butter and dip the tops. Leave 20 minutes for the glaze to set.
Ingredients: 120 g dark chocolate, 70 % · 80 ml whipping cream (30%) · 10 g butter
TipFill them no more than an hour before serving. The cream softens the shell from inside, and after a night in the fridge the crispness is gone.
Piped from below, tops dipped in the glaze
Before you start
Cream puffs from the same paste
Instead of lines, pipe walnut-sized mounds and bake 10 minutes less. Filled with whipped cream they are classic cream puffs.
Freezing the shells
Empty, cooled shells freeze beautifully for a month. Revive them straight from frozen: 5 minutes at 180 °C and they are as good as new.
Why mine collapsed
The usual reasons: the oven was opened, the bake was too short (pale éclairs have no rigid wall yet), or the paste was too loose from one egg too many.
Other fillings
Stir 2 tablespoons of cocoa or 100 g of melted chocolate into the vanilla cream; for a coffee version, add a spoon of instant coffee to the hot milk.
