16 éclairs

 

Choux pastry

125ml water

60g butter

a pinch of salt

130g flour

4 (small) eggs

 

Filling

125g sour cream, 25% fat content

20g sugar

125g mascarpone

1 ripe mango

 

Glazing

100g dark chocolate

 

Do you like this dessert? My Marcel adores it and he has been nagging me to bake it since Egypt (we used to eat a lot of mangoes there). There are times in a year when he only wishes to eat ’éclair’ (he’s already bought a mango for the next batch). I found my Mom’s recipe for the shells and I’ll prepare it with a modern twist i.e. the filling.

 

At least 5-6 hours before baking the shells, make the mango filling. Beat the cream with the sugar in a bowl and the mascarpone in another bowl. Blend the mango, mix the mascarpone into the cream, stirring gently, with a wooden spoon. Add the mango purée and place the bowl into the fridge.

To make the shells, add the water, the butter, and the salt into a pan and place it on low heat. When the mixture boils, add the flour at once, stirring fast with a wooden spoon. Turn off the heat and let the dough cool. Add the eggs one by one, stirring continuously. Don’t add an egg until the one before was fully incorporated.

Half-fill a pastry bag with a 1-cm nozzle (I use a cup to make my life easier) and – on a baking tray lined with parchment paper – pipe out 10-cm long bars, a finger thick. Leave a 3-cm space between the bars.

Bake the shells in the preheated oven, at 190°C, for the first 20 minutes, and then at 170°C, with the oven’s door slightly open, for 20 minutes more.

Take them out of the oven, place them on a rack (I also placed aluminium foil underneath the rack).

When the shells cool, by using a pastry bag nozzle, make three holes on the back of the shells and start filling. [it was a bit difficult given the fibrous texture of the mango] I usually fill all the shells once, I leave the cream set, and then I fill them one more time.

In this case, I decided to glaze half of the éclairs with chocolate and I placed the rest of the éclairs in the fridge.

Melt half of the chocolate on a steam bath and then turn off the heat and add the remaining chocolate, stirring until it looks silky. Pour it over the éclairs and let it cool.  

 

They are great for breakfast or munched with friends.