Now let’s cook
Eclair. Chocolate on top, irimshik inside: curd simmered until its whey has boiled away, then dried.
Ingredients
- 140 g plain wheat flourwhite wheat flour, called all-purpose in the US
- 2 pinches sugarwhite granulated sugar
- 2 pinches fine saltordinary table salt
- 125 ml milkcow’s milk, part of which goes into the choux dough and the rest into the custard
- 125 ml waterplain drinking water
- 100 g buttermade from cow’s milk
- 4 eggslarge hen’s egg, about 50 g without the shell
- 60 g irimshikshop-bought and grainy: curd cooked until its whey has boiled away, then dried
- 2 g vanilla podthe seeds are scraped out and go into the filling
- 300 ml milkcow’s milk, part of which goes into the choux dough and the rest into the custard
- 50 g sugarwhite granulated sugar
- 2 egg yolksfrom a large egg, about 17 g
- 1½ tbsp plain wheat flourwhite wheat flour, called all-purpose in the US
- 1½ tbsp cornflourwith the flour, it thickens the custard
- 375 ml whipping creamat least 33% fat, for whipping (keep it in the fridge until you whip it)
- 100 g dark chocolateplain, in a bar, with no filling or flavourings, for melting
- 25 g buttermade from cow’s milk
- 1 tbsp icing sugarfinely ground sugar that dissolves without grains
Method
Heat the oven to 220 °C. Sift the flour with a pinch of sugar and a pinch of salt. Put 125 ml of milk, 125 ml of water and 100 g of butter in a saucepan and warm them over a low heat until the butter melts, without letting the liquid bubble.
Turn up the heat and bring the liquid to a fierce boil. Take the pan off the heat straight away, add all the flour at once and beat hard with a wooden spoon until the dough is smooth and pulls away from the sides. Spread it on a large plate and let it cool until just warm.
Beat the eggs and work them into the dough a little at a time, mixing well after each addition. Stop once the dough falls from the spoon slowly, in a heavy ribbon: you may not need every last bit of egg. Do not taste the choux paste before it is baked: it contains raw eggs.
Line two baking trays with parchment. Using a piping bag with a 1 cm nozzle, pipe the dough into strips about 10 cm long, leaving room between them. Bake one tray at a time: as soon as it goes in, turn the oven down to 200 °C and bake for 25 minutes.
Split each eclair lengthways with a small serrated knife. Put all the halves back in the oven for another 5 minutes to dry until crisp and golden, then leave them to cool.
Pound the irimshik in a mortar or blitz it in a blender to fine crumbs. Cut off about a third of the vanilla pod, split it lengthways and scrape out the seeds with the back of a knife.
Heat 300 ml of milk until it is nearly boiling. Meanwhile, mix the sugar, the egg yolks and the vanilla seeds in a bowl, then work in the flour and the cornflour a little at a time to make a smooth paste. Do not taste the custard before it is cooked: it contains raw yolks.
Pour the hot milk into the paste in a thin stream, whisking all the time. Tip everything back into the pan and cook over a high heat for about 5 minutes, stirring hard without stopping, until the custard thickens. If lumps appear, do not stop: they will smooth out. Take the pan off the heat and stir in the irimshik crumbs.
Cover the custard with cling film touching its surface, let it cool, then chill it for at least 1 hour.
Set aside 75 ml of the cream for the glaze and whip the rest until thick. Beat the cold custard briefly with a mixer until even, then gently fold in the whipped cream.
Spoon the filling into a piping bag with a wide nozzle, since the irimshik crumbs would block a narrow one. Pipe it onto the bottom halves of the eclairs and cover them with the tops.
Melt the chocolate with 25 g of butter in a bowl set over a pan of barely simmering water. Off the heat, stir in 75 ml of cream and the icing sugar. Let the glaze cool a little, spread it over the eclairs and leave it to set.
