While my husband was out yesterday, I baked this Happy Birthday Eclair and since his name is William, I had a nice large eclair to work with.
“Happy Birthday, Love of my Life”; I said it many times yesterday, but one more time for the record. We don’t throw each other fancy birthday parties, we are more about the little things and those little things don’t necessarily have to happen on birthdays.
It was a little bit of a struggle to get it ready; my pastry bag or piping bag broke at the seams, in the middle of forming the W, so I had to scramble to transfer the dough to another make-shift bag. Luckily, the Happy Birthday Eclair worked out OK, acceptably OK.
Making the dough is really easy; cook water, salt and butter, add flour, cool a little, add eggs. Once mixed well, you can put it in your pastry bag and start creating your design.
In the picture below, you see a little circle above the W, that the spot I used to bake a ‘tester’. A small heap of dough that I could open up, to see whether the eclair was ready or needed to bake a little longer. You can also see that I piped two layers on top of each other. The bottom came out flatter than I wanted. A few extra swirls on top gave me enough room for the filling.
Cut the letter in half (horizontally) and start pipping the cream on the bottom part. Don’t use it all up as you need some for the top. I made Mascarpone cream (half Mascarpone, half whipping cream) as that give just a little bit more flavor than plain whipping cream.
Pipe small cream rosettes on top of the eclair. Top the cream with raspberries and tiny mint leaves. Sprinkle the entire letter with powered sugar and your Happy Birthday Eclair is ready to be devoured.
Looks nice, don’t you think? Voluptuous, decadent, creamy. Happy Birthday darling.
Happy Birthday Eclair
Ingredients
- 4 ounces butter
- 3/4 cup water
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 3/4 cup flour
- 3 eggs
- 1 cup mascarpone cheese
- 1 cup whipping cream
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 4 tablespoons sugar
- raspberries
- mint leaves
- powdered sugar
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 425 degrees F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Bring water, butter, and salt to a boil in a small saucepan, until butter is melted. Reduce heat, then add flour all at once and stir with a wooden spoon, until mixture pulls away from side of the pan and forms a ball. Transfer mixture to a bowl and cool slightly, 2 to 3 minutes.
- Add eggs 1 at a time, beating well with an electric mixer after each addition.
- Transfer mixture to a bowl and allow to cool just slightly.
- Add the eggs, one by one, and mix well with a mixer. Add the next egg only after the first it totally mixed into the dough. After the 3rd egg, the dough is light yellow and shiny.
- Transfer dough to a pastry bag and pipe your desired letter of the alphabet.
- Bake the eclair until golden and puffed. This will take approx. 25 minutes. Prick each profiterole once with a toothpick, to allow the hot air to escape and return them to the oven to dry; leave the oven door open. Cool entirely.
- Whip mascarpone stiff with whipping cream, sugar and vanilla extract.
- Slice the letter horizontally in half and fill the bottom part with 85% of the mascarpone cream and place other half on top.
- Pipe small rosettes on the letter in various places. Place a raspberry (or slice of strawberry) in the middle of the rosette, decorate with a small mint leave.
- Sprinkle with powdered sugar.
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