Eclair Cake
I’m so excited to share this recipe with you guys– it’s one of those fancy desserts that is deceptively easy to make. I’ll walk you through how to do each part and, at the end, I’ll put in a big grocery list and short-hand version of the recipe that you can reference easily while cooking.
Eclairs are made of three parts: a pâte à choux (the pastry dough), a cream filling and a chocolate topping.
Don’t be intimidated by the french name of the dough! It’s actually pretty easy– you just have to be mindful of your order of operations.
We’ll start with the dough just to get it out of the way:
Pâte à Choux:
100g water
100g milk
100g butter
10g sugar
120g flour
pinch salt
3ish large eggs (maybe 4 if your dough needs it)
This is one of the only recipes where I recommend using weight to measure your ingredients. Usually I find it too fussy– but with choux it actually is important to be precise. When you use a scoop, it’s very easy to get too much or too little in your bowl without realizing it.
How to Measure Ingredients By Weight:
Use a food scale. Turn it on and place a small glass bowl on top. Zero out the weight while the bowl is sitting on the scale (that way it only weighs the ingredients you put inside and not the bowl itself). Each time you measure a new ingredient, make sure your scale is zero’d out.
1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees
2. Heat 100g milk, 100g water, 100g butter, 10g sugar and a pinch of salt in a pot over medium heat.
3. Once your mixture is boiling, remove it from the heat.
4. Add 120g of flour all at once and start stirring rapidly with a rubber spatula.
5. Quickly return to heat and keep mixing. You’ll notice as you stir, that your mixture will start to dry out and stop sticking to the sides of the pot. This will happen within a minute. Once your mixture is slightly glossy, remove from the pot into the bowl of a stand mixer with a whisk attachment or a small bowl with a handheld whisk.
6. Let your mixture cool down a touch (not all the way, just enough where it doesn’t cook your eggs as soon as you add them– like 30 seconds)
7. Begin mixing in your eggs. Crack them in one at a time– you may not need all four! When your dough is done, the mixture will have a great shine to it– and when you drag your spatula along the bottom of the bowl, the choux will fall back into the line slowly. If you’re using a stand mixer, when you tilt back the head the dough should form a long “V” shape at the bottom of the attachment.
8. Turn two 9” cake pans upside down. We’re going to use the bottom of the pan to cook our cake– kind of like how they use the bottom of a skillet to cook crepes.
9. Cut two circles out of parchment paper and place it on the bottoms of the cake rounds– feel free to do a light spritz of PAM on each pan.
10. Divide your choux evenly between the two pans– try to make them as even as possible, that way they can stack nicely.
11. Place in the 350 degree preheated oven and bake for 30 minutes. When the timer goes off DO NOT OPEN THE DOOR. (okay, you can crack it a little to check on the color and release some steam– but only a second!) Turn the oven temp up to 375 and bake for another 15 minutes.
12. Turn off your oven, open the door, poke a couple holes in your cakes to release any remaining steam and leave the door cracked for about five or so minutes for the cakes to set up.
13. Take out of the oven, place on the counter and let them cool while you prepare the cream and chocolate ganache.
Eclair Cream:
One Box Vanilla Pudding
Two Eggs
Now, this portion of the recipe is where we get a little “Sandra Lee Semi-Homemade Meals”. You just went through a lot making that choux. No one wants to spend another hour making a fancy french cream. Pudding works– and it tastes damn good. I add a couple more eggs to the mix, just so it can set up a little firmer– but you don’t need to get crazy with it.
Using a fork, mash two eggs into a bowl full of your pudding powder.
Follow the rest of the package instructions.
Chocolate Ganache:
8 oz Ghirardelli Milk Chocolate
1 cup Heavy Whipping Cream
Chop your chocolate (or pour your chips) into a small heat-proof bowl.
Pour cream into a pot on the stove and heat until just simmering. Don’t bring it to a full boil– you don’t want to burn your chocolate.
Pour your cream over your chocolate, let sit for a second to heat up the chocolate, stir until combined.
Now it’s time to assemble your cake! Place a round of choux down on your platter, slather with your pudding filling, layer another choux round and top with chocolate!
This dessert tastes even better after it’s sat in the fridge overnight!
Grocery List:
8 oz Ghirardelli Milk Chocolate
Heavy Whipping Cream
One Box Vanilla Pudding
6 Eggs
Milk
Butter
Sugar
AP Flour
Salt
Quick Reference Recipe:
1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees
2. Heat 100g milk, 100g water, 100g butter, 10g sugar and a pinch of salt in a pot over medium heat until boiling. Remove from heat.
3. Add 120g of flour all at once, stir rapidly, return to heat. Mix until no longer sticking to sides and glossy. Remove from pot.
4.Whisk in your eggs one at a time.
5. Pour dough on the bottom of two cake pans.
6. Bake 30 minutes
7. Turn oven temp up to 375 and bake another 15 minutes.
8. Poke holes in cakes, turn oven off and leave door cracked with cakes inside for another 5 minutes.
9. Use a fork to mash two eggs in your pudding powder.
10. Follow package instructions for pudding.
11. Chop 8 oz of chocolate in a heat-proof bowl.
12. Heat 1 cup heavy whipping cream until just barely simmering.
13. Pour on top of chocolate, stir to make ganache.
14. Assemble Eclair Cake.