Chocolate Éclair: Custard Sauce Filling

Ingredients

Eclair

45g butter

50g water

50g milk

1g salt

2g sugar

60g cake flour

110g eggs

Notes: By cake flour, I mean low protein flour, which normally contains 7-9% protein (Mine is around 8%). Not self-rising flour.

Custard Sauce

1 egg yolk

15g sugar

12.5g cornstarch

125g milk

10g unsalted butter

80g heavy cream

12g sugar

Chocolate Glaze

55g chocolate chips

50g heavy cream

Steps:

Eclair

1. Heat and boil water, milk, butter, sugar, and salt.
2. Turn off the heat, add in cake flour; stir hard until all the ingredients come together. Turn on the heat (keep it medium), and keep stirring for 2 minutes until some thin film forms on the bottom of the pan.
3. Transfer the dough to a clean bowl, let it cool down a little bit, and then use a hand mixer, beat while adding eggs into it until it gains a very smooth and silky texture.
4. Put the batter into a pipping bag with a pipping tip and start to pipe out eclairs.
5. Dust them with powdered sugar. (3 times)
6. Preheat the oven to 374℉(190℃) and bake for 20 minutes; then set the oven to 347℉(175℃) and bake for 20 minutes. Take the cream puffs out of the oven; let them cool down on the cooling rack.

Custard Sauce

1. Add sugar into the egg yolk, whisk until the sugar dissolves. Add in cornstarch and mix well. Heat the milk until bubbles, add into the egg yolk mixture and quickly whisk them in.
2. Pour the mixture back into the pot. Over medium heat and keep stirring the mixture until thickened. Off heat, add in butter, and stir hard until well combined.
3. Transfer custard sauce into a clean bowl, cover the sauce with plastic wrap, and set in the fridge to cool it down.
4. Take the sauce out, whisk it smooth, add in 80g heavy cream and 12g sugar, whisk until forms stiff peaks. Put them all in a piping bag, and fill the éclairs or any cream puffs with it.

Chocolate Glaze

1. In a clean bowl, bring together chocolate chips and heavy cream. Microwave to melt the chocolate chips and mix well.
2. Dip one side of the eclairs into the chocolate glaze. Chill or cool until set.