Chocolate Eclairs Cake Recipe – Video

A chocolate eclair cake is a very crunchy and delicious combination of crispy pastry, smooth cream filling and frost with the melted dark chocolate.

Generally, the flavor of the filling usually matches the glaze flavor or the frosting. But, today I’m gonna break a little traditions of the eclair cake making, and fill the pastry with the cream vanilla flavored and then dip the pastry in a melted chocolate. This gonna be delicious and yummy, you just need to melt few ounces of dark chocolate and let your pastry cools first then dip them in the melted chocolate. But if you want to match both of the filling and the glaze just feel free to do that. 

While a French pastry named Antonin Careme may have invented the Chocolate Eclair, North Americans have become very fond of this pastry. This is an unusual pastry in, that it is first cooked on the stove and then baked in the oven. The cake is made by adding flour to a boiled mixture of butter and water. This really important that the butter melts before the water boils as you do not want too much evaporation as this will change the consistency of the dough.

But today, before making the dough, I will first making the custard filling by mixing corn flour, egg yolks, sugar, salt and vanilla paste in the sauce pan and using the wooden spoon or rubber spatula just mix it all together until they all combined well. Once the milk mixture is combined well, place the sauce pan to burner and cook it about the medium heat and keep stir it the whole time until the custard thickens. And set aside once it’s cooked. Then go on to make the shell, all you need to do is put together water and the butter in the sauce pan and cook it until the butter is melted. Next, you need to add the flour and keep stirring it quickly and cook it for about 2 minutes or until they are thickens.

Then, transfer the flour mixture into the bowl mixer and mix it up until the mixture is cooling down, with the mixer running, add the eggs and mix it up. Once it’s done, place the dough shell into the piping bag and on the baking sheet that already lined with the parchment paper, go ahead and pipe out about 6 inc longs a few inches apart on you baking sheet and bake it until the shell is golden brown. Once it’s just out from the oven let it cool and goes on make the hole on the shell and put the custard inside the shell and you can dip this eclair cake in the melted chocolate.

Ingredients of How to Make Chocolate Eclair Cake:

Ingredients for Dough (Shell):

• 1 cup of Water
• 1 cup of Plain Flour
• 1/2 tsp Salt
• 1/2 cup of Unsalted Butter
• 4 Eggs at Room Temperature

Ingredients for Cream Filling (Custard):

• 2-1/4 cups of Whole Milk
• 1/4 cup of Corn Starch
• 1/4 cup of Granulated Sugar
• 4 Egg Yolks
• 1 tsp of Vanilla Paste
• Small Pinch of Salt

Ingredients of Ganache (Chocolate Glaze):

• 4 ounces of Semi sweet Chocolate Chips
• 1/4 cup of Heavy Cream

Instructions of How to Make Chocolate Eclair Cake:

1. We are going to start the first step by making the cream filling or custard. In a large saucepan and with the heat turned off, whisk together the cream filling ingredients, they are milk, corn starch, granulated sugar, the vanilla paste, eggs yolks and the small pinch of salt and mix it up until the all ingredients is combined well.
2. Next, after the custard mixture is combined well, place the custard over medium heat and cook it, and remember to always stir the mixture whole the time until the custard thickens. Once it’s done, pour the custard on the large bowl and cover that with the plastic wrap until the custard is cooled to room temperature before we place them to the dough and make sure that the plastic wrap is touching the custard and pop it in the refrigerator.
3. Now, we are going to make the dough. First, preheat your oven to 425 degrees F and line the 2 baking sheets with parchment paper and just set aside.
4. In a medium saucepan, pour the water and the butter along with the salt then bring to a boil over medium low heat, and make sure that you keep stir it. Once it’s done, remove it from the heat. Add the flour all at once and stir well using a spatula or wooden spoon until the flour is completely mixed in.
5. Next, turn the heat back on to medium heat and stir it again for about 2 minutes.
6. Once the dough is mixed well, put the dough into the bowl mixer using the paddle attachment and beat it to make the dough cooling down to room temperature. After the dough is at room temperature then add the egg one at a time until all the eggs are well incorporated.
7. Fill a disposable piping bag that has been fitted with a large round tipped with some of the dough (you will have to do these in batches) and pipe out 6 inch logs a few inches apart on you prepared baking sheets.
8. Brush the top of the eclairs with some water and bake them for about 10 minutes, reduce the heat to 350 degrees and continue bake them for additional 20-25 minutes or until the shell is golden brown.
9. As soon as the shell comes out from the oven, use a medium size piping tip and make a little hole at the end of each side so the steam can escape, and let the shell cool completely.
10. While waiting your shell cooled, go on and continue to make the ganache or chocolate frosting. Heat the cream in a small pan over the medium heat just until below boiling point.
11. Pour the heated cream over the chocolate chips and let sit for about 1 minute and whisk until the chocolate chips melted.
12. Now, we are ready to assemble the cake, using the piping bag fitted with a medium size round tips, fill each shell and dip the tops in the melted chocolate or using a spoon pour the chocolate melted over the top of the eclairs.

This will be so much better if you place the cake in the fridge just until the chocolate glaze is frozen. It’s gonna be so much delicious.