These salted caramel eclairs are a delicious twist on the traditional French Eclairs. These choux pastries are filled with pastry cream that is lightened with Truwhip, homemade salted caramel, and a salted caramel icing. Also they get decorated with a cute edible maple leaf.
Choux Pastry
63 g water
63 g milk
57 g unsalted butter (1/4 cup)
1/2 tbs sugar
1/2 tsp salt
75 g all purpose flour
2 eggs
Craquelin (cookie top)
1 cup unsalted butter (113 g)
Pinch of salt
128 g flour
128 g brown sugar
Pastry Cream
1 large whole egg
2 large egg yolks
½ cup white sugar
¼ cup cornstarch
1 teaspoon kosher salt
2 cups whole milk
2 tsps vanilla bean paste
4 tablespoons cold butter, cubed
1 cup- Truwhip (whipped topping)
1 cup- granulated sugar
6 tbs- unsalted butter
1/2 cup- heavy cream
1 tsp salt
Salted caramel icing
2 cups powdered sugar
1 tbs milk
2 tbs salted caramel
For the craquelin-
1. Place the butter, salt and sugar in a bowl and beat the ingredients together until creamy and fluffy.
2. Add the flour and mix until the mixture looks crumbly. Using your hands, bring the crumbly bits of dough together to form a large piece of dough.
3. Roll out dough between two pieces of parchment paper about 1/8 to 1/16 inch thick. Shape it into a rectangle. Use a pizza slicer to cut rectangles out, they should be 1"x 4".
4. Place tray in the freezer. They must be frozen before placing on top of choux.
5. Re-roll the remaining dough and cut out more rectangles as needed
For the choux:
1. Preheat oven to 375°F.
2. Place salt, water, milk, sugar and butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat, stirring occasionally. When the water is starting to boil (butter should be melted at this point), remove pan from heat and add the flour all at once and vigorously mix the flour in. When the flour has absorbed the water and it's forming a dough, return the pan to the stove (medium heat).
3. Cook the dough for 1 – 3 minutes (over medium heat) while you mix and move it around in the pan until you get a dough that pulls away from the sides of the pan and forms a film on the bottom of the pan.
4. Transfer the dough to a large mixing bowl and let it cool slightly. Add eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition. The mixture should be glossy, pipe-able, and should resemble a thick paste.
5. Prepare two baking trays with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat. Place choux pastry in piping bag fitted with a large french star tip.
6. Pipe 4” logs on your baking tray. Be sure to leave at least 3” of space between each one. They will nearly triple in size once they bake.
6. Place frozen craquelin rectangle over choux.
7. Bake in preheated oven for 25–35 minutes in the center of the oven, or until the choux pastry puff up and are golden brown on top. Do not open oven door while they are baking!
8. Remove from the oven and poke a hole in each choux. This will release the air from the inside and keep them crisp.
For the pastry cream-
1. Place whole egg and 2 egg yolks into a mixing bowl. Add sugar, corn starch, and salt. Whisk together completely until mixture turns from yellow to a very page creamy color and is slightly thickened, 5 to 8 minutes.
2. Place milk in a saucepan. Heat over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally, until milk just barely starts to simmer and a few small bubbles appear on the surface. Remove from heat. Whisk hot milk into egg mixture, starting with a small splash then incorporating the rest. Pour mixture back into saucepan.
3. Place pan over medium-low heat and continue to whisk until mixture begin to thicken, 3 to 5 minutes. Remove from heat and let it cool 5 minutes. Add chunks of butter and vanilla paste, whisk until butter melts into the warm milk mixture. Pass mixture through a fine mesh strainer to remove and chunks of cooked egg or vanilla seeds. Cover surface with plastic to keep it from discoloring; refrigerate until thoroughly chilled 2 to 3 hours.
4. Once completely cooled add 1 cup of Truwhip to the pastry cream. Gently fold till it is completely combined and light and fluffy.
For the salted caramel-
1. Heat granulated sugar in a medium heavy-duty stainless steel saucepan (do not use nonstick) over medium heat, stirring constantly. Sugar will form clumps and eventually melt into a thick brown, amber-colored liquid as you continue to stir. This takes about 6 minutes. Be careful not to burn it.
2. Once sugar is completely melted, immediately stir in the butter until melted and combined. Be careful in this step because the caramel will bubble rapidly when the butter is added.
3. After the butter has melted and combined with the caramelized sugar, stir constantly as you very slowly pour in the heavy cream. Since the heavy cream is colder than the hot caramel, the mixture will rapidly bubble when added. After all the heavy cream has been added, stop stirring and allow to boil for 1 minute.
4. Remove from heat and stir in the salt. The caramel will be a thin liquid at this point. Allow to slightly cool down before using. Caramel thickens as it cools.
Assemble-
Transfer pastry cream and salted caramel each into a piping bag fitted with a small round tip. Use a knife to make three holes on the bottom of each eclair. Add a bit of salted caramel into each hole followed by a bit of pastry cream.
To make the icing-
Add powdered sugar, milk and salted caramel to a medium bowl that is big enough to dunk each eclair. If the icing is too thick add a bit more milk.
Dunk each eclair into icing.
To decorate-
drizzle more icing on to each eclair and add gold leaf.
optional- if you want to create maple leaves use wafer paper. Find an outline online and use the paper to trace over it with an edible marker. Use a toothpick or something sharp to outline the lines of the leaves. Use red, orange, and gold petal dust to lightly brush on the color.