What Exactly Is an Éclair? (2024)

FAQs

What exactly is an éclair? ›

An éclair is a long French pastry made from choux pastry, filled with pastry cream or custard and dipped in fondant icing. The most popular éclair is probably the chocolate éclair, which is topped with chocolate fondant and filled with chocolate custard or pastry cream.

Actually, they both are made from choux pastry which is eggs, flour, and butter, filled with cream, but different in shapes. We can easily distinguish them! Eclairs are long oblong with some toppings, while choux creams are often small and round pieces like a cabbage.

An American eclair is made from frozen ingredients such as frozen pre-separated egg whites and yolks and frozen pre-made cream. A French eclair is fresh: freshly separated eggs, freshly stirred creme, freshly picked or ground ingredients.

Éclair. An oblong-shaped choux dough filled with cream and topped with chocolate icing, some variations are filled with chestnut puree, flavoured custard or fruit flavoured fillings. The name éclair means 'flash of lightning', perhaps due to the glisten of the frosting.

: an oblong pastry with whipped cream or custard filling. Etymology. French, literally, "lightning" Word Origin. The English word éclair comes directly from a French word whose chief meaning is "lightning" or "flash of lightning." No one is sure why a pastry was named after lightning.

Made with a delicate crisp pastry filled with vanilla bean infused custard and topped with a rich chocolate glaze, eclairs are divine deliciousness. Versatile Treat! Eclairs can be served in the morning with coffee as a decadent breakfast, after dinner as a dessert, or even in the afternoon just because.

I use this approach in my cream puffs, but personally prefer straight pastry cream in my eclairs. Eclairs are best when served either at room temperature or cold, within 12 hours of filling them with pastry cream.

Éclairs were created in the 19th century by chef Marie-Antoine Carême, one of the first celebrity chefs of French culinary history.

It is the apparent simplicity of the recipe, along with its melting texture, that combine to embody all the charm of the traditional éclair: a long 'finger' of choux pastry, generously filled with velvety-smooth pastry cream and topped with a sweet fondant icing.

Translation of "mon éclair" in English

my lightning. my flash.

What is the French name for éclair paste dough? ›

Pâte à choux is a classic French dough that's used to make a wide range of pastries, from cream puffs to éclairs to cheesy gougères and more. Choux (pronounced like “shoe”) means cabbages in French; the baked puffs resemble small cabbages.

As Serious Eats reported, luxury eclairs are the result of French chefs facing competition, and putting their skills to the test, which explains the high-end fillings and intricate decoration. For now, the Maitre Choux versions are made in the tiny kitchen beneath the shop.

Choux pastries (i.e. cream puffs, eclairs, etc.) won't rise if the oven temperature is too low. For the pastries to rise properly, the temperature needs to be really high at first so that the steam builds up inside of the dough and causes them to rise and hollow out.

An éclair is a long and thin individual cake made out of choux pastry. This fabulous dessert is topped with milk chocolate and filled with cream *queue drooling*. A donut is a fried dessert of sweet dough and is traditionally in the shape of a ring or ball. YUM.

Like all non-cake doughnuts, Long Johns are made with a yeasted dough, which gives them their trademark chewiness. Eclairs, meanwhile, are made with a French Choux pastry, which uses no leavening agent whatsoever and consists primarily of butter, flour, water, and eggs.