Getting some more fall recipes in before winter hits.
Use a sturdy wooden spoon to beat the choux so it doesn’t crack in half like my last wooden spoon.
And boy do I hope you like marshmallows because there is a lot of them in this recipe.
I added some mini marshmallows for cuteness.
The eclairs are filled with a sweet potato pastry cream. So overall this eclair is pretty sweet. I’d say if that concerns you to go for a decorating style that tones down on the amount of marshmallow frosting (like spreading a thin layer of marshmallow over the top instead), or to reduce the amount of sugar in the pastry cream (at your own risk).
I got the recipe idea from here, but used my own recipe for the marshmallow frosting and choux pastry.
Ingredients (makes about 12 eclairs)
Choux pastry (Pâte à Choux if you want to be fancy)
- 90g whole milk
- 90g water
- 85g butter (3/4 sticks)
- 3/4 tbsp sugar
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 103g all purpose flour
- 3 large eggs
- 30g large egg whites (slightly less than 1 egg white)
- 1 cup milk
- 1/2 tsp vanilla
- 75g sugar
- 25g cornstarch
- 55g egg yolks
- 1g salt
- 88g (about 1/2 a medium) sweet potato, roasted, cooled, mashed
Swiss meringue (marshmallow) frosting
- 3 large egg whites
- 160g granulated sugar (3/4 cup)
- Pinch of salt
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
Additional decorations and optional peripherals
- Mini marshmallows (to decorate)
- A petal tip to get the swirl marshmallow pattern (I used Wilton #125)
- An open star tip to get pipe the eclairs (I used Wilton #827)
- A blowtorch to brûlée the marshmallows
Method
Choux pastry
- Bring the milk, water, butter, sugar, and salt to a boil in a saucepan.
- Reduce the heat to low, and then add all the flour at once.
- Beat the mixture very well with a wooden spoon until it leaves a film at the bottom of the pan. Keep cooking and stirring nonstop for another 3 minutes to dry but not colour the dough. At this point the ball should start picking up the dough from the bottom of the pan so there is less of the film.
- Take the saucepan off the heat and continue to stir the mixture until it has cooled down enough that you can touch the saucepan with your hands/it’s not hot enough to scramble eggs.
- Beat the eggs and egg whites together in a bowl and add the egg mixture to the dough in 3 additions, beating the dough well between each addition. The mixture might look wrong at first but just keep beating until a smooth, satiny dough forms. You know the dough has hit the right hydration when you drop the dough from the spoon and it forms a triangle shape.
- Scoop the choux dough into a piping bag (with an optional open star tip) and pipe medium-sized éclairs (I aimed for 2-3 biters), leaving some space between each éclair.
- Bake in a preheated 180°C/350°F oven for about 30-35 mins, rotating the baking sheets after 20-25 mins if one side starts to brown faster than the other. The choux is done when you tap the bottom and it sounds hollow, and it looks golden brown.
- Transfer the choux to cooling racks, and place back in the switched off oven with the oven door ajar to dry the choux out further. Cool to room temperature.
Sweet potato pastry cream
- In a bowl, whisk the egg yolks and sugar together until it’s a pale yellow.
- Add cornstarch and salt to the egg yolk mixture and whisk to combine. Set aside.
- In a saucepan, combine the milk and vanilla. Bring to a boil and then remove from heat.
- While whisking the egg yolk mixture, slowly stream the hot milk mixture into the egg yolk mixture.
- Place mixture back on medium heat and bring to a slow boil, stirring continuously, until thickened (about 2-3 mins).
- Move to bowl and cool until slightly warm, with plastic wrap directly contacting the cream to prevent a skin from forming.
- Beat in the sweet potato until combined.
- Put the plastic wrap back over the pastry cream, making sure to directly contact the pastry cream, and cool until completely cooled to room temperature.
Swiss meringue frosting
- Place the egg whites into a large heatproof bowl, and set over a saucepan with gently simmering water, making sure the water is not in direct contact with the bowl. Whisk with an electric whisk until the egg whites are foamy, then add the sugar and salt. Whisk until you cannot feel the sugar grains in the egg whites any more (should take about 3 mins).
- Remove the bowl from heat, and whisk until the meringue is cool and you achieve stiff peaks. Mix in vanilla.
- Place the remaining meringue into a piping bag (with an optional petal tip attached) and set aside.
Assembly
- Take an éclair and make two small holes in the bottom with a chopstick.
- Place the tip of the piping bag into the hole and fill each choux well with pastry cream, making sure to rotate the choux so you fill all sides of the choux.
- Pipe the meringue frosting over the eclair in a zigzag pattern, with the piping tip perpendicular to the eclair.
- Top with mini marshmallows, and then torch the marshmallows and meringue with the blowtorch.
Notes
- This is best served immediately for optimal crispness of the choux, but I refrigerated the choux and they still tasted good the next day. Try not to keep them too long though – they get moist.
- Some alternative ways to fill éclairs is to cut each éclair lengthwise and then pipe the filling in. This would look especially pretty if you pipe the filling with a patterned tip and you’d probably squeeze more filling into each éclair as well. But I’ve always liked the aesthetic of an uncut éclair better (and it’s also easier to transport without smushing the filling all over the container).
- A hack to pipe out éclairs is to use a large star-shaped nozzle to direct a circular and even expansion of the éclair while avoiding large cracks in the choux.
- Also a light dusting of icing sugar over the éclairs before baking is supposed to help with improving the colour of the éclairs but I’ve honestly never noticed a difference with or without the icing sugar.
- Sprinkling your baking tray with drops of water before baking is also supposed to help with crisping the choux but I think the choux is pretty crispy even without this hack.