Chocolate Eclairs made with a traditional eclair pastry, stuffed with homemade chocolate custard, and topped with a rich chocolate icing.
My husband loves eclairs and cream puffs, and I make them as a special treat for him! I posted this recipe years ago and thought it high time I updated it (and made him a batch of treats in the process). These take a little bit of time but none of the steps are terribly hard or complicated. I think the biggest thing is that it's essentially three different recipes to make one dessert. It's a process but the end result is delicious.
Have you ever made a Choux pastry, or pâte à choux, the dough used to make eclairs and other similar dishes? It's nothing more than water, butter, flour, and eggs, but how you incorporate them makes all the difference. It's very easy once you do it once, and you'll be wondering why it took you so long to try it in the first place.
Because chocolate eclairs take a little while to make, I think of them as special occasion food. These would be perfect to make for Valentine's day or a birthday to celebrate with something special.
Tips and Tricks for Making Chocolate Stuffed Eclairs:
- Don't forget to let the flour and butter mixture rest for 5 minutes before adding the eggs. If you add the eggs while it's too hot, they start to cook and you'll get little chunks of scrambled egg in your finished dough. Not the goal.
- If you have a long metal tip for your piping bag (like one you would use to fill donuts) you can fill the eclairs from each end instead of splitting them open. That's a fun option too and a little less messy when you are eating them.
- Not wanting to make the icing? No problem, skip it or dust them lightly with powdered sugar.
What's the difference between an eclair and a cream puff?
Apart from shape, the main difference between a cream puff (which is round) and an eclair (which is oblong) is that you fill cream puffs with straight whipped cream and dust the tops with confectioners' sugar instead of chocolate. Eclairs are filled with pastry cream and topped with chocolate.
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Chocolate Stuffed Eclairs
- Total Time: 3 hours
- Yield: 24 eclairs 1x
Description
Chocolate Eclairs made with a traditional eclair pastry, stuffed with homemade chocolate custard, and topped with a rich chocolate icing.
Ingredients
Scale
Dough:
- 1 cup water
- 1 stick butter (½ cup)
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- 4 eggs
Filling:
- 6 tablespoons all-purpose flour
- ¼ cup dutch-process cocoa powder
- ¾ cup sugar
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 3 cups milk
- 3 eggs, beaten
- 2 teaspoons vanilla
Icing
- 2 (1-ounce) squares chocolate (I used ½ c. chocolate chips)
- 2 cups sugar
- 1 cup whipping cream
Instructions
For the pastries:
- Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.
- In a medium to large sauce pan, heat the water and butter to boiling.
- Remove from the heat and the flour all at once, stir constantly until mixture is smooth and forms a ball.
- Let cool for 5 minutes.
- Beat in the eggs, 1 at a time, fully incorporating before adding the next.
- When the eggs are all mixed in, mix well until the mixture is no longer shiny (about 1 minute). Place the dough into a pastry bag.
- On a greased cookie sheet, pipe out dough in thick lines that form eclairs.
- Bake for approximately 30 minutes or until light brown.
- Set aside to cool.
For the filling:
- While the pastries cook, make the filling. In a medium saucepan, prepare filling by whisking together the flour, cocoa powder, sugar and salt.
- Whisk in about 1 cup milk and cook over low heat, stirring often, until thickened, about 2 minutes.
- Add the rest of the milk.
- In a small bowl, whisk together the eggs.
- Slowly add a ladle-full of the hot milk mixture to the bowl of eggs and stir to combine and then add the egg mixture back to the sauce pan on the heat, whisking as you pour it in.
- Continue to cook and add the vanilla.
- Set in the fridge to cool.
To assemble and make icing:
- With a serrated knife, slice pastry puffs lengthwise, but not all the way through.
- Pipe or spoon the custard mixture into the center.
- To make the icing, add the chocolate, cream, and sugar to a medium sauce pan.
- Cook over medium heat, stirring often. Bring to a simmer. Simmer for 5 minutes. Let cool and beat until smooth.
- Ice tops of the eclairs.
- Cool or serve right away.
- Store leftovers separately covered in the fridge.
Notes
- I like the icing but they are good without it, too. It's optional though it does add lots of chocolate taste.
- Prep Time: 20
- Cook Time: 30
- Category: Dessert
- Method: Bake
- Cuisine: American
Keywords: eclairs, chocolate eclairs, how to make eclairs, easy eclair recipe, chocolate desserts, romantic chocolate dessert
Love this chocolate stuffed eclair recipe? You'll also like these chocolate recipes:
- Super Small Batch Chocolate Chip Cookies (Makes 6 Cookies!)
- Small Batch Double Chocolate Brownies (I like these small batch recipes for Valentine's Day and birthdays because you can make a batch when the kids are in bed and leave no evidence behind.)
- Chocolate Covered Banana Hearts
- Homemade Chocolate Fondue
- Chocolate Molten Lava Cakes
I hope these inspire you to try something new or make an old favorite!
Life on the Farm:
At officially 1 month-old, the bunnies are growing like weeds! We bring them inside daily to play with and pet them so that they are tame pets. It's working wonderfully so far! What a treat to have around.
Aher
Can we use Hershey’s unsweetened cocoa powder?
Melissa
Yep, that will work great!