Eclairs are a favorite treat of childhood for both our generation and our parents. You just remember this delicate, sweet, with a delicate creamy note taste of cakes ... As a child, this dessert uplifted and, it seems, solved all and all problems. Yes, he most likely will never cease to be a favorite sweetness. Everyone knows that dishes prepared at home by the beloved hands of mom or grandmother are much tastier than those bought in stores. We suggest that you familiarize yourself with the history of your favorite pastries and a variety of recipes for their preparation.
History of the Eclairs
Eclair is a French sweet and got its name due to the fact that glaze shimmers on it under the influence of light. "Eclair" in translation from French means "lightning, flash."
There is no exact evidence of the author of this remarkable masterpiece. However, there is an assumption that he was invented by the famous chef of the French royal family - Marie-Antoine Carney. It is believed that dessert appeared in the nineteenth century. If suddenly you did not know, but there is even a national holiday dedicated to the chocolate eclair - June 22.
Eclairs are simply impossible impossible not to love. In France, this confectionery is considered one of the most revered, because they honor it for two hundred years.
Variations of the fillings of eclairs every year are becoming increasingly widespread from the simplest to the most unusual. Consider the most common of them.
Eclairs with cream
We love these delicious cakes since childhood. What do you mean by "eclairs with cream"?
Eclairs with cottage cheese, custard, sour cream, cream and so on. There are so many variations of the filling for the cakes that when you choose, your eyes just run wide. Next, we will give several recipes with each of them.
Let's look at the first cooking option - eclairs with sour cream. You will certainly like them!
Sour cream eclairs
Cream Ingredients:
- Sour cream 20 percent - 0.5 kilograms;
- Sugar - 0.5 cups.
Ingredients for making dough:
- Flour - 150 grams.
- Water - 240 milliliters.
- Salt is a pinch.
- Sugar - 3 tsp.
- Butter - 100 grams.
- 2 eggs.
First of all, pour the necessary amount of water, sugar, salt into the pan and put on medium heat.
As soon as the resulting liquid boils, add flour to it, mix until a homogeneous mass is obtained.
Now turn off the heat and transfer the dough to another bowl. Give her about 10 minutes to cool. Then one by one add the eggs to the mass. The consistency of the dough should turn out smooth and fall off the spoon.
Next, you need to transfer the resulting mass into a culinary bag or a plastic bag and make a hole in it 1 centimeter in size.
Now lay the parchment paper on a baking sheet and grease it with butter. Squeeze out the dough in a convenient shape for you and bake for about 40 minutes in a preheated oven to 180 degrees.
Then proceed to the preparation of the filling. Mix sour cream with powdered sugar and beat the mixture with a mixer. Wait until the eclairs have cooled, and cut it to the end, fill the dough with cream. If desired, you can cook and pour the cakes with icing or sprinkle with powdered sugar.
Eclairs with curd cream
Let's move on to the next recipe - eclairs with curd cream (see the photo of the finished dessert below).
Ingredients for the dough:
- Butter - 50 grams.
- Water - 145 milliliters.
- A pinch of salt.
- Flour - 65 grams.
- Eggs - 2 pieces.
Ingredients for Curd Cream:
- Cottage cheese (fat content at your discretion) - 150 grams.
- Sour cream 25 percent - 150 grams.
- Sugar - 5 tablespoons.
- A pinch of vanillin.
Prepare the necessary ingredients. Put the butter in a saucepan or pan. Turn on the fire and bring to a boil. After boiling, pour the flour, stirring the mass vigorously, bring it to a uniform state. Now the mass must be removed from the heat and immediately add eggs to it. As in the previous recipe for eclairs, the necessary criterion for an ideal test is that it should drain a “ribbon” from a spoon. If the dough is very thick, you can add the egg in small portions.
Now lay the parchment paper on a baking sheet and, moving the dough into a pastry bag or bag, put it portionwise on a baking sheet. Do not forget that when baking it increases in size, so you need to leave some distance between the products. Bake eclairs at a temperature of 180 degrees for about 25 minutes. Inside they should turn out hollow. Leave the eclairs for a while, allowing them to cool.
Curd Cream Recipe
Now we turn to the preparation of the cream. It is prepared very quickly and easily.
Combine cottage cheese, sugar and sour cream alternately. Then add vanillin. Using a blender, drive the mass into a dense and uniform state, it should turn out by consistency, like a paste.
Now cut the eclairs in half on the side, without cutting to the end, and fill them with cooked curd cream. If desired, again, ready-made eclairs can be coated with glaze or sprinkled with powdered sugar. Eclairs with cream of cottage cheese are ready!
Mascarpone Cream Recipe
With raw mascarpone, the cream for eclairs is airy and incredibly delicious.
To prepare it, you will need:
- Mascarpone cheese - 250 grams.
- Cream 33% - 350 milliliters.
- Powdered Sugar - 150 grams.
- Vanillin to taste.
The preparation of the cream occurs in this way. Initially, you need to cool the cream, mascarpone cheese and whisk for whipping, holding them for a while in the refrigerator. Then whip the cold cream and icing sugar together, achieving a dense cream consistency.
In a separate container, it is necessary to whip the chilled mascarpone cheese and add whipped cream to this mass gradually and gently, stirring constantly. Finally, add vanillin to taste.
Custard Eclairs Recipe
To prepare the custard dough you will need:
- Flour - 150 grams.
- Sugar - 1 teaspoon.
- Milk - 125 milliliters.
- Salt is a pinch.
- Eggs - 4 pieces.
- Butter.
- Water - 125 milliliters.
To make custard you need:
- 0.5 liters of milk.
- 150 grams of sugar.
- 50 grams of butter.
- 1 teaspoon of vanilla sugar.
- A pinch of salt.
- 5 yolks.
- 150 milliliters of cream 33%.
- Flour - 30 grams.
Custard Recipe
Prepare all the necessary ingredients.
Pour the required amount of milk into the pan, add vanilla sugar to it, stirring, bring the milk to a boil. As it boils, it is necessary to remove it from the fire. Cover the pan tightly with cling film, leave for 20 minutes (to saturate with vanilla flavor).
While milk is infused, mix flour and sugar in a separate bowl. Do not add too much flour to the dough, the cream should not turn out too thick. Next, add the yolks to the bowl and mix until smooth.
We return to the milk and put it on the fire again, bringing to a boil. Pour one third of the hot milk into a dry mixture of flour and eggs, stirring constantly. Pour the remaining milk to the end. The resulting mixture is sent to the pan and put on a slow fire, heating and stirring constantly until thick. Add butter and stir. Add whipped cream.
Choux pastry recipe
There are also no difficulties in making custard dough.
Pour milk, water into the stewpan, add butter, salt and sugar. Now you need to put the stewpan on the fire and bring to a boil, sometimes stirring. Pour all the quality sifted flour into the liquid and mix everything very quickly. Do not be alarmed when a dense mass begins to form in a stewpan while stirring. That is how it should be. The dough should not stick to your hands. Remove from heat, cool and add eggs one at a time. The dough should shine and be uniform. As a result, squeeze out the dough of the shape you need on a baking sheet covered with parchment paper. Bake at 190 degrees for about 35 minutes.
Products should turn out to be golden and shiny. Now they need to be filled with custard.
The finished cake - eclair with custard - turns out to be unusually tasty, just like from childhood.
Protein Cream Eclairs
To prepare the test, you can use one of the options that we have already given. Do not forget about the basic rules for its preparation:
- Sift flour well when added to the mass.
- Do not make the cakes too large, because they significantly increase in volume during baking.
- Leave enough space between the items on the baking sheet.
- High-quality cakes do not tear, because they are made from dense, well-kneaded dough.
But for the preparation of protein cream you will need:
- two egg whites;
- a pinch of citric acid;
- vanillin - a pinch;
- sugar - 100 grams.
Put all the ingredients in a bowl, and put it in a water bath. Beat squirrels to strong peaks. Remove from the bath and beat for a few more minutes.
Next, cut the eclairs and fill them with cream. Done! Even in the photo, eclairs with protein cream look incredibly appetizing. And in life, you just can not resist! They are incredibly tasty and airy, just melt in your mouth!
Despite the excellent taste of cakes, their calorie content is in earnest high. Therefore, those who follow their own figure need to be very careful with these sweets.
On average, the calorie content of eclair with cream reaches 440 kcal.
Summarize
The history of the origin of eclairs is quite interesting. As you can see, there are an incredible amount of cooking options for eclairs, both the test itself and the filling. Eclairs can be made with lemon, pistachio, strawberry, chocolate and even nutty flavors. You can also decorate such cakes for every taste and color. Icing, icing sugar, grated chocolate, coconut, various sprinkles, crushed nuts or almond petals. Of course, eclairs cooked at home are much tastier than those bought in the store.