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Many of you asked me for a recipe for coffee éclairs. Chocolate too! I’m going to separate the recipes for more flexibility in searching later in the blog. What took me so long? Because I don’t have the right oven at home (for the choux, it’s not great) and I wanted the perfect cream. I had in mind the wonderful éclairs of the “Café de la Paix” near the Opéra Garnier. They are since became unaffordable, but still worth a taste! So I worked mostly on the cream recipe. I actually keep my custard base to which I add more custard powder for a firmer consistency, which will then be beaten to soften. The result is a rich, fresh and melting cream. For the icing, I give you a traditional method manual, but you can also icing them with a piping bag …
But what is cream powder? Simply vanilla cornstarch. It is in fact a pastry cream powder. I was quite skeptical with this powder but it actually retains moisture perfectly and that’s why the custard has that consistency. Where can we find it? At G.Detou as usual, on the internet too. But also at the local supermarket! After researching, it is the same as the “ready to use” pastry cream bags in the “pastry products” aisle and I know that the Ancel brand sells them. And it is one of the brands used by the pros in pastry making. I’ve always made my custard “at home”, but with a little of this extra “cream powder”, the cream takes on a wonderful consistency! And it is this ingredient that gives the flan its texture!
Recipe for “coffee eclairs” for about twenty pieces:
-125ml of water
-125ml of milk
-250ml of eggs (you need a volume for the choux pastry to succeed! that’s about 5 eggs)
-140g of flour
-110g of butter
-5g of sugar
-5g of salt
Coffee pastry cream
-1l of semi-skimmed milk
-100g of soft butter
-110g of cream powder
-200g of egg yolk
-250g of sugar
-A pinch of vanilla powder (really optional!)
-trabilt coffee extract at will
-1kg of neutral flux
-coffee extract
-30 to 50g of sugar cane syrup
Start by preparing the pastry cream:
Put the 200g of egg yolks in a bowl with the vanilla powder, half the sugar and the cream powder.
Mix well with a whisk.
Boil the milk with the other half of the sugar and the butter.
When the milk is boiling, pour a small amount over the yolk-cream powder mixture.
Mix well.
And pour this mixture back into the saucepan with the rest of the hot milk.
Return to simmer over low heat. Boil for three to four minutes while whisking.
Pour the pastry cream into a dish.
And cover with stretch film directly in contact with the cream. Let cool completely then store cool.
Here is the coffee I use for this recipe. This is the Trablit brand. You can find it as usual at G.Detou or on the internet without difficulty.
Place all the custard in the bowl of a kitchenaid or kenwood food processor, or in a bowl.
Simply whip it vigorously to smooth it out and make it soft. You can do it by hand with a whisk or with the whisk of the food processor. Smooth for at least 5 minutes.
Add coffee extract. Taste and add as you go. I have absolutely no idea how much because I always do it “on the fly”!
The Trablit is not very strong, so you can use a lot of it.
Set the cream aside in a cool place until ready to use.
For the cabbages: prepare them the day before so that they harden a little.
Preheat the oven to 200°C.
Put milk, water, butter, sugar and salt in a saucepan.
Bring to a boil over low heat.
Add the flour all at once off the heat.
Stir well (even quite briskly!!) then put back on low heat for 1 minute to dry out the dough. It is necessary to mix constantly. The dough will come off the bottom of the pan.
Pour the dough into a bowl.
Add the 205ml of beaten eggs little by little on the dough. mix well before adding the remaining eggs.
Stir vigorously to blend.
Put the pastry in a pastry bag fitted with a smooth or fluted tip at least 10mm in diameter.
You can draw 10-12cm long lines with a pencil to help you make straight eclairs. In my experience, you should not overdo the thickness of the choux, as they swell up a lot when cooked.
You can put 6 to 8 eclairs per plate.
Bake for 20-25 minutes at 200°C. The eclairs must be really golden, otherwise they will fall apart.
Then let the eclairs dry overnight to allow them to stale a bit. If you don’t wait a bit, you will have a hard time dipping the eclairs in the fondant.
The next day, fill the eclairs by making three small holes under the eclairs with a small fluted tip or a fine knife tip. One hole in the middle and two symmetrical ones across the tip of the lightning bolt.
Put the coffee cream in a pastry bag fitted with a 6mm nozzle and fill the eclairs with the three different holes. When the cream overflows a bit, scrape the lightning from underneath. Do the same with all .
Prepare the icing for the éclairs:
Put the fondant in a double boiler or in the microwave to melt it a little. Don’t get too hot! It is enough to reach 30-35°C.
Add the trablit. As with the cream, you just have to go a little at a time.
Then add a little liquid sugar cane syrup (30 to 50g) to soften the fondant and to keep its shine while drying.
Dip the cream-filled eclairs, upside down (in the photo the choux pastry is empty to make it easier to take pictures!!), up to the halfway point.
It looks like on the picture that I am shooting the lightning directly upwards, but no! You have to lift it up very slightly, then take it off like a child takes off a toy plane.
Remove excess icing by scraping (not completely!!!) with the index finger of the hand that is not holding the lightning bolt. Still following??
Do the same for all the eclairs.
Keep in a cool place. The eclairs will keep for a maximum of 2 days in a cool place. But there is little chance that they will survive all that time.
