Eclairs - filling

Making eclairs. Today let's talk about the filling.  Without a good filling, an eclair is just a bunch of baked dough with a bland interior.  The filling is important to get right.  This particular filling is a blend of a custard and whipped cream.  Cake flour, sugar and salt are all whisked together.  The sugar whisked in combination with the cake flour will help ensure that the cake flour won't clump when it is introduced to whisked eggs.  So this mixture of dry ingredients and eggs now sits off to the side.

Milk is scalded. Basically I heat it up until little bubbles start to form on the outer edge.  We don't want it to boil.  Technically scalding has been achieved once the milk reaches about 180 F.  Once scalded, the milk is then added slowly to the egg mixture while whisking.  Then once it's all combined, the entire mixture is poured back into the saucepan.

Now we have to stir constantly for a few minutes.  The mixture will start to thicken.  Once it does, I always stop stirring periodically to see if it is bowling yet.  Once it starts to bowl, I only want it to continue for about 10 seconds, just enough to cook the flour taste out.  Any more and the texture won't be what is wanted.   Remove it from the heat, and pour it through a fine-meshed sieve into a heat-resistant bowl.  At this time, add vanilla extract.  If using vanilla beans, the seeds can be scraped into the milk when it is first in the pan for scalding.  But vanilla extract will not handle that heat well, and should added here at the end.  It's always a good thing to remember that vanilla bean seeds and vanilla extract should be added at different points when going into very hot mixtures.

Now the strained custard will chill in the fridge for a few hours.  Press plastic wrap right up against the surface to keep it all soft and smooth.

Once chilled, it will be unused until we are ready to fill the eclairs.  When that time comes, heavy cream is whipped until very stiff.  Then it is whisked into the custard.  Now we have a cream-infused custard.

And here's what it look like.  If you taste this, it will be amazing.  Lightly sweet, lots of vanilla tones, and wonderful silky texture.

Now it's ready to fill an eclair.  When that times comes, just put it in a pastry bag so that you can pipe it into the eclair shells.  More on that in the next post.  For now, the mixture will sit in the fridge.

That's all for tonight.  Next time:  eclair shells.

Have a great week, everyone!