Air cakes with cream inside came to us from French cuisine. They are made from choux pastry. It has a special composition, due to which the liquid from the dough during baking begins to evaporate, but the oil does not release steam to the outside. As a result, the shell swells, a void forms inside the bun. In it after the cream is laid. It remains to cover the eclairs with icing and cool. Inexperienced housewives often do not dare to start cooking eclairs simply because they do not believe that their dough will rise, remaining hollow inside. Their fears are not groundless: if you do not know the technology of dough preparation and do not take into account a few subtleties, baking will not succeed. However, knowledge of these nuances guarantees an impeccable result, especially as the dough is prepared for eclairs according to fairly simple recipes.
Cooking Features
Inexperienced housewives, starting to prepare eclairs, knowing only their recipe, but not the technology of making pastries, often make mistakes, due to which their works are in vain. Knowing a few moments will help to avoid trouble and make delicious and beautiful cakes the first time.
- Flour must be sifted so that it is enriched with oxygen and cleaned of small litter, then the dough will be tender and airy.
- It is undesirable to replace butter with margarine or other similar products: vegetable fats may not cope with the main task - to keep the air inside the bun.
- When you melt butter with liquid (water or milk), do not let them boil for a long time, otherwise the moisture in the dough will remain less than necessary, the buns will come out flat.
- When brewing flour, it is necessary to fall asleep quickly, knead the dough immediately, spreading it along the bottom of the pan, gathering it in a ball and smearing it again. The whole process should take a couple of minutes.
- Eggs are added to the dough after it has cooled slightly, so that they do not curdle. It is still not necessary to cool the dough too much, otherwise it will become slippery after adding eggs.
- It is desirable to add eggs not all at once, but gradually, until the dough reaches the consistency of the cream. If you knead the dough with a spoon, you need a little more eggs than when you beat the dough with a mixer.
- If at the time of baking eclairs you came to the conclusion that the dough is too dense, you should not put eggs into it or pour water. It is better to cook a small amount of more thin dough and mix it with a thick. If the dough was originally not dense enough, then it is mixed with a thicker dough, and not just add flour.
- Baking technology of eclairs is no less important than the technology of making dough for them. The baking sheet is greased and moistened slightly, a pastry syringe or similar device is spread on it with small sausages, leaving a distance of at least 2 cm between them, as the baking process increases in volume in the baking process. Place the baking sheet in the oven preheated to 180 degrees, bake for 20 minutes without opening the door. After turning off the oven, the door is opened, but the pan with cakes is not removed for 5-10 minutes. Only then will the eclairs be airborne, not fall off.
- It remains to fill the eclairs with cream, cover it with icing and temporarily put it in the fridge so that the icing will freeze.
Traditional dough for eclairs is prepared on the water, but there are other options for it. The recipe can be chosen at its discretion.
Classic recipe test for eclairs
Composition:
- water - 0, 25 l;
- wheat flour - 0, 2 kg;
- chicken egg - 4 pcs .;
- butter - 100 g;
- salt - a pinch.
Method of preparation:
- Melt the butter on the steam bath.
- Mix with water, add salt.
- Sift flour.
- Put the oil and water on a low heat, wait for boiling.
- Pour the flour in, immediately stirring the contents of the pan with a spoon.
- Brew the dough, knead intensively with a spoon for a minute. Remove pan from heat.
- Allow the dough to cool for 10 minutes.
- Insert eggs one at a time, beating the dough each time until a homogeneous composition is obtained.
The finished dough should resemble a thick cream, be soft enough to spread it out with a cooking bag, but dense enough to keep the shape.
Choux pastry for eclairs according to GOST
Composition:
- water - 180 ml;
- butter - 100 g;
- chicken egg - 5 pcs .;
- wheat flour - 0, 2 kg;
- salt - a pinch.
Method of preparation:
- Mix water with chopped butter and salt. Put on a slow fire and wait until the oil has melted completely.
- Sift flour.
- Pour the flour into the pan. Intensively stirring the contents of the pan with a spatula, brew the dough. As a result, it should gather in whom.
- Put the dough in a bowl, let it cool slightly.
- Place the eggs in a separate container, whisk.
- In a spoon, stir the eggs into the dough, mixing it well with a spatula, until the dough has the desired consistency. Some eggs can remain, they can be used to make an omelet or other dishes.
The finished dough is placed in a culinary bag and spread on a baking sheet through a figured nozzle. After that, it will remain to put the baking sheet in the preheated oven and wait 20 minutes.
Dough for eclairs with milk and yeast
Composition:
- milk - 0, 2 l;
- water - 20 ml;
- flour - 0, 2 kg;
- chicken egg - 4 pcs .;
- butter - 80 g;
- dry yeast - 10 g;
- sugar - 2-3 g;
- salt - a pinch.
Method of preparation:
- Boil the milk, melt the butter in a water bath.
- Mix milk with butter. Bring this mixture to a boil.
- Pour into a bowl of sifted flour. Stir thoroughly.
- Add salt, sugar, yeast to warm, but not hot water, mix.
- Pour the mixture into the dough, knead it.
- In a separate container, beat the eggs.
- Beat dough with a mixer, gradually add egg mass to it.
- Leave the dough in a warm place for an hour to fit.
- Form sausages of the desired size from dough; place them on a greased baking sheet. Place in a preheated oven to 200 degrees and bake until tender.
Eclairs from a dough prepared according to this recipe are more rosy than traditional ones.
Dough recipes for eclairs are not complicated, but its preparation has a number of nuances, without the knowledge of which you can fail. Acquainted with the technology of cooking custard dough and exactly following the instructions accompanying the recipe, even a novice hostess will cope with the task.
