I had a craving yesterday for a really good Eclair so I made a batch last night. I was given the recipe yesterday by a friend and decided to try it. The recipe has an excellent approval rating from me. These Eclairs are excellent.



I took this picture right after putting on the gnash.

Chocolate Eclairs

Ingredients:



Eclair:
1 C water
1/2 C margarine or butter
1 C all purpose flour or self-rising flour
4 eggs

Heat oven to 400°. Heat water and butter to rolling boil in saucepan. Stir in flour. Stir vigorously over low heat till mixture forms a ball. Beat in eggs, all at once; continue beating until smooth. Drop dough by scant 1/4 cupfuls (shaping into a 'log' shape) about 3 inches apart onto un-greased cookie sheet.
Bake 35 to 40 minutes. Cool away from draft...cut open top and remove any filaments of dough. Fill eclairs with filling, replace top, frost.

Filling:
2/3 C sugar
4 T cornstarch
1/4 t salt
4 C milk
4 egg yolks slightly beaten
2 T butter or margarine, softened
4 t vanilla

Mix sugar, cornstarch and salt in saucepan. Stir in milk, gradually. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until mixture thickens and boils. Boil and stir for one minute. Stir half the mixture gradually into egg yolks. Add that to the mixture and boil and stir one minute. Remove from heat; stir in vanilla and butter. Cool.

Note: (From the original author of this recipe) I made this the first time I made these eclairs and it was good, but, the next time I made them, I didn't have a lot of time, so I used Jell-O French Vanilla Instant Pudding...it tasted exactly the same. Needless to say...

Frosting:
Heat 1/2 square (1/2 ounce) unsweetened chocolate and 1/2 teaspoon butter over low heat until melted. Remove from heat; stir in 1/2 cup powdered sugar and about 1 tablespoon hot water. Beat until smooth.

Note: Personally, I like lots of icing so I quadruple the recipe:
2 squares unsweetened chocolate
2 t butter
2 C powdered sugar
4 T hot water (give or take)


Notes from IC

I changed the original recipe and doubled all the ingredients except for the quadrupled gnash. You see my ingredient list above. The recipe also called for making a log with 1/4 cup of the batter. You can see how big mine turned out by the photo. Next time I will pipe with the piping bag. I also baked mine on parchment paper.

For the filling I poked a hole and hollowed out the interior of the pastry with a wooden spoon handle and piped in the filling.


Enjoy, IC

I could really kill Jon's resolution of getting back into shape with these lol.

I Love eclairs, Mm those look really really GOOD!! Cookie

Now no one with a stomach bug needs to be reading this recipe. They should be getting plenty of rest and feeling better.
Cathy, the recipe above called for either self rising or regular flour. I didn't have any self rising flour but thought the same you did and wanted them to turn out right. I actually added a half tsp of salt and a teaspoon of baking powder to my cup of flour.
To be honest, I don't think I really had to. It's actually the egg that causes the rising like a puff pastry or a Yorkshire pudding. I think that with boiling the water and butter and cooking in the flour cooked off any rising from the baking powder.