Eclairs will all be better from Lisa Glinskaya. Chocolate eclairs with fondant from Lisa Glinskaya. Basic custard recipe

If you want something delicious with tea with a classic taste and noble French origin, then you need to choose custard cakes. And eclairs are rightfully considered the most colorful pastry made from choux pastry. Today we will prepare eclairs according to Lisa Glinskaya’s recipe.

Eclairs are oblong pies made of porous choux pastry with cream inside. They are usually decorated with glaze on top. Eclair translated from French means nothing more than “lightning”. They probably named these cakes that way because they are eaten with lightning speed!

Eclairs, like all French desserts, have their own cooking secrets. The most important tricks for preparing “correct” eclairs are revealed in recipes from Elizaveta Glinskaya.

To bake perfect eclairs, just strictly follow the instructions for preparing the dough and cream. But in order to create a real masterpiece with an unusual sweet and sour cream, you need to take the advice of Mrs. Glinskaya.

If choux pastry is always prepared according to strict technology, then light apple cream mousse is Lisa’s original invention, which is an excellent replacement for the usual fatty butter creams, condensed milk and whipped cream.

For the test you will need:

• filtered water - 125 ml
• cow's milk - 125 ml
• wheat flour - 150 g
• chicken eggs - 4-5 pcs
• granulated sugar - 1/2 tsp
• butter - 100 g
• vanilla pod

Lisa's first secret to perfect choux pastry is a mixture of milk and water in the right proportions. Milk will give the dough a pleasant golden color, and water will give it a stable texture and prevent the formation of cracks in the crust.

So, mix milk and water and put on fire. Cut the vanilla pod lengthwise, remove the center and add to the milk. Natural vanilla will give the dough an incredible aroma.

Pour the prepared sugar into the heated mixture and bring to a boil. Then add oil. The secret of the correct dough is that the butter must mix well with the milk, otherwise the eclairs will simply separate during baking.

Add flour to the boiling mixture. Stir quickly and remove from heat after 5 seconds. Finish kneading and return to the heat and hold for another 5 seconds. Remove and cool the dough to 60 degrees. You can check this by hand. If you can touch it without getting burned, then you can already introduce eggs.

The main trick to a good choux pastry is the correct number of eggs. First, add 3 eggs to the dough, one at a time, beating it with a food processor or mixer. Then take two more eggs, but before adding them, you need to beat them with a fork. Pour the eggs into the whipping dough in a thin stream. Watch how it behaves. If you overdo it with eggs, the dough will spread; if you don’t add it, it will be too dense and will subsequently be tough.

As a result, the dough should be elastic and glossy. Transfer the dough into a pastry bag and pipe out long strips, measuring 1.5 cm by 15 cm, onto a baking sheet lined with parchment.

Bake the eclairs in the oven at 200 degrees for 10 minutes, then reduce the power to 180 degrees and continue baking for another 10 minutes. At the same time, the oven door must not be opened, otherwise the cakes will fall.

Cream preparation process

For cream:

• green apples - 400 g
• water – 750 ml
• sugar 150 g
• lemon juice - 10 ml
• vanilla stick
• semolina - 80 g

A delicious original cream according to Lisa Glinskaya’s recipe is prepared simply and quickly. It has a luxurious aroma, lightness and unusual taste. Apples need to be peeled, cut into cubes and boiled in 750 ml of water. At the same time, cook the caramel - melt the sugar in a saucepan until brown.

When the apples are cooked, without draining the water, mix them with caramel and blend with a blender. Send to the fire and add semolina. Add vanilla and cook until semolina is ready. Cool and beat the cream with a whisk. It will be saturated with oxygen and will increase significantly in volume. And, it is important to know that the colder the mass is, the faster it will rise when whipped.

Now we need to assemble our eclairs. To do this, make small holes in the sides of the finished cakes. Using a pastry bag with a thin tip, pipe the apple cream mousse inside the cakes.

Top the eclairs with powdered sugar mixed with aromatic cinnamon.

Video recipe for making eclairs from Lisa Glinskaya

How to cook profiteroles

Products needed for making profiteroles:

1. Pour milk and water into a saucepan

2. Add sugar and salt

3. Add oil

4. Place the saucepan on the fire and bring the mixture to a boil

6. Remove the mixture from the heat and, stirring constantly, brew the dough

7. Return the saucepan to the heat, reduce it to medium and cook the dough for another 15-20 seconds, stirring continuously. We determine the readiness of the dough by the thin crust that should form at the bottom of the saucepan.

8. Transfer the dough into a deep container and begin adding eggs one by one

Add eggs gradually, since the number of eggs depends on the consistency of the dough

9. We determine the number of eggs based on the consistency of the dough: you may need 4 or 5 eggs, or maybe more

10. Each time after adding eggs, mix the dough well

11. The ideal dough has a consistency that is not very liquid and not very thick and has the appearance of a “flowing ribbon”

12. Fill a pastry bag with a round tip with dough and place profiteroles with a diameter of about 3 cm on a parchment-lined baking sheet.

13. The distance between profiteroles should be approximately 3-4 cm. Remember that they will increase in size several times. Bake the profiteroles in an oven preheated to 170°C for 15 minutes, then reduce the temperature to 160°C and bake the profiteroles for another 15-20 minutes

Take the finished profiteroles out of the oven, cool, cut off the lid and fill with cream.

INGREDIENTS (for 20 pcs.)

• Flour - 200 g
• Oil - 200 g
• Water - 200 g
• A pinch of salt - 2 g
• Eggs - 4 eggs Cream:
• Milk - 500g (450 + 50g left cold)
• Yolks - 6 pcs
• Sugar - 150 g
• Vanilla sugar - 1 tbsp. (1 sachet)
• Flour (or starch) - 2 tbsp. with a slide (50g.)

PREPARATION METHOD

First we prepare the dough. Put oil in a saucepan, add water, add a pinch of salt. Bring to a boil.

Add sifted flour (200 g) in one portion and mix well. The flour should be cooked and the dough should stick together into a ball. Transfer it to a bowl to cool. Add eggs one at a time to the dough, stirring constantly and kneading the dough with a spatula.

Place the cooled choux pastry in a pastry bag or a tight bag. We line a baking sheet with pastry paper and squeeze balls 2.5-3 cm wide and 6-7 cm long onto it from a pastry bag.

To make the neck of the swans, we squeeze a hook in the form of the number “2” onto the sheet. Place the dough in the oven and bake for 30 minutes: first 15 minutes at a temperature of 200 C and then another 15 minutes at a temperature of 180 C. It is better to place the sheet with “swan necks” closer to the door, where the temperature is lower - so they will not burn. Make a cut in the finished eclairs from the oven to allow steam to escape and let cool completely. Fill the cooled eclairs with custard, do this through the cut we made after baking.

Preparing the cream. To do this, grind the yolks with sugar. You need to beat so that there are no yellow lumps left, but no foam is formed.

Boil 450 ml. milk, add vanilla sugar to it. Pour in the yolks, ground with sugar. Stir all the time. When the egg mass begins to boil, sift the flour directly into the pan, stirring vigorously so that no lumps form. If you can’t do this and lumps still form, add the flour to the eggs, ground with sugar, and only then add the egg mixture to the milk. So that the cream boils well and thickens, as soon as the flour is added, stirring, cook for 2 minutes, then remove from the heat, stirring constantly, then put on the fire again and cook again for 2 minutes. Thus, cook the custard until thick. As soon as the cream is ready, remove it from the heat and immediately add 50 g of cold milk to the hot cream and beat. This helps the cream thicken better. Cool the whipped cream.

Melt the chocolate in a water bath. Let cool slightly and dip the top of the eclairs in melted chocolate. Let the chocolate harden completely.

Eclairs in the shape of swans (“Everything will be delicious!”)

To prepare swan-shaped eclairs, we use the same dough and custard as for classic eclairs. We just prepare in advance a portion of dough for these products and custard for two types of eclairs. We form eclairs “swans”: cut the cooled cakes into three parts. First, cut the eclairs into two parts lengthwise and then cut the top part in half - these will be the wings of the swan. Place the cream in a pastry syringe or bag. Apply cream to the bottom of the cake and insert the swan neck into it. We cover it with more cream on top and put the wings on it.

Eclairs “Boats” with curd cream (“Everything will be delicious!”)

Curd cream:

• Butter - 150 g
• Cottage cheese - 300 g
• Powdered sugar – 150 g
• Vanilla essence - ½ tsp.
• Raisins - 50 g

Preparing curd cream. We rub the cottage cheese through a sieve. Beat 300 g of soft butter at high speed, add 1 tbsp. vanilla sugar and powdered sugar. Continuing to beat, gradually add grated cottage cheese. Add steamed raisins to the cream and mix.

Forming eclairs “boats”

Cut the baked eclair into two parts. From one part we completely remove the partitions from the dough. Fill the second one with cream. The first part of the eclair needs to be turned over and the convex part placed directly into the cream. Place cut fruits on top of the resulting “bucket” and sprinkle with powdered sugar, cocoa or grated chocolate. Decorate with mint leaves.

Profiteroles with chicken and mushrooms (“Everything will be delicious!”)

INGREDIENTS

• Chicken (ready fillet) - 150 g
• Butter - 2 tbsp. l. (50 g)
• Nutmeg (ground), black pepper (ground) - to taste
• Mushrooms (champignons) - 300 g (raw)

PREPARATION METHOD

Boiled chicken fillet together with fried mushrooms are passed through a meat grinder and kneaded until smooth. Add butter, nutmeg, ground black pepper and mix the resulting mixture thoroughly. We put it into the profiterole with a wet spoon, having first removed the lid from it and taken out the crumb.

See also (“Everything will be delicious!”).

Croquembouche is a popular French cake. It is served at weddings and used to decorate the Christmas and New Year's tables. Today we will get acquainted with the intricacies of preparing a complex and at the same time original dessert of custard cakes with cream, folded into a pyramid, decorated with caramel.

French croquembouche cake made from profiteroles - a complete set of taste and aesthetic pleasures for gourmets and connoisseurs of culinary art.

The dessert is interesting not only for its exquisite taste, but for its special, in a sense, ambiguous form. Imagine a sweet structure of small profiteroles cakes with delicate Chantilly cream, laid out in a pyramid in the shape of a cone, held together with caramel syrup. The dessert is decorated with candied flower petals, chocolate, fresh berries, and nuts. The entire majestic structure is secured by the finest threads of shiny caramel rain.

Croquembouche cake - history

The interesting history of the Croquembouche recipe is no less interesting than the cake itself. There is a legend that during the reign of the Prince of Wales in England, a certain French pastry chef attended the wedding ceremony of a noble gentleman. He was surprised by the carelessness of the presentation of the wedding dessert - a shapeless mountain of pies with sweet filling was piled on a large dish.

Being an esthete and a professional, the French pastry chef built a regular cone-shaped pyramid, using the pies as bricks for a majestic wedding cake, and then held the entire structure together with caramel string. The pies were subsequently replaced with cakes with cream filling, decorated with berries and nuts, they began to experiment with the ingredients and shape of the cake, but the name of the dessert and the crunch in the mouth from caramel remained unchanged.

The Croquembouche dessert from the famous American chef Gardon Ramsay was first presented in the program “Hell's Kitchen”. After the enchanting presentation, the Croquembouche cake became known to many viewers, and the recipe became popular and in demand.

Croquembouche cake: recipe with photos step by step

Let's look at a step-by-step recipe for a complex dessert - Croquembouche. If you do not strictly adhere to the classic recipe, then:

• Profiteroles can be replaced with custard cakes or shu buns
• Instead of Chantilly cream, use custard with various fillings or butter with condensed milk as a filling.
• You can combine cakes not only with caramel, but also with berry syrup, black or white chocolate
• Using natural dyes (beets, spinach, carrots) or food dyes, color the cake in different colors

Choux pastry for Croquembouche cake

Choux pastry for cakes is the main condition for preparing dessert. It requires the following products:

1. eggs 4-5 pcs.
2. butter 100 g.
3. flour 200 g.
4. 1/4 - liter can of water
5. 1/2 tsp. salt
6. 2 tbsp. l. sugar (optional)

• Cut the butter into pieces, heat it together with water and salt in a saucepan

• We wait until the oil dissolves in the water and the water boils

• Turn off the heat and remove the pan from the heat
• Pour the flour into the oil liquid, mix well so that the dough is smooth and does not form lumps

• Place the pan on low heat and stir the dough with a spatula
• As soon as it stops sticking to the walls of the pan, remove from the stove.

• Place the soft, pliable dough with an even structure into a large bowl.

• Add eggs to the dough one at a time
• After each egg, quickly mix the dough with a spatula, hands or mixer.
• We make sure that the protein does not cook and the dough does not turn out liquid

• Using a pastry bag or spoon (constantly soaked in cold water), transfer the profiteroles onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.

• We place the profiteroles in a checkerboard pattern - they increase in size, and in this arrangement there is more space left.
• We lightly press down the cakes so that the cakes are even and resemble buns.

• Preheat the oven to 180-200° C and place the baking sheet for 10-20 minutes until the profiteroles acquire an appetizing blush.

Cakes should not be abruptly removed from the oven. Open the door slightly and wait a few minutes so that they do not settle. While the cakes are cooling, prepare the cream.

Croquembouche cake - cream for profiteroles

Initially, in the traditional recipe for Croquembouche cake, the popular French pastry cream for cakes and pastries, Chantilly, was used as a filling for the cakes. Tender, airy and very tasty.

Chantilly cream for the French dessert Croquembouche

• 2 cups cream
• 4-6 tbsp. l. powdered sugar
• ice or very cold water

Prepare French Chantilly cream:

1. Place the bowl of chilled cream in a larger bowl filled with ice and cold water.
2. Place the whisk in the freezer for a while
3. Whip the cream with powdered sugar vigorously, using circular movements.
4. Constantly lift the whisk along with the cream, saturating it with air.
5. As soon as a clear mark from the whisk remains on the surface of the cream, slow down the whipping process
6. The cream should stay firmly on the whisk and not fall off.
7. If you beat the cream, then instead of an airy light mass, you get butter
8. Cream can be varied in different flavors - pistachio, coffee, chocolate, vanilla, strawberry

The cream turns out to be tender and tasty, but very expensive, so let’s consider the simplest and most economical option - custard.

Classic custard recipe

The most popular cream for filling custard cakes with the same name. It is easy to make, tasty, and goes well with choux pastry.

Ingredients for 1 liter of milk:

• glass of powdered sugar
• 100 g flour
• 5 yolks and 2 whites
• 1 liter of milk
• vanilla pod

Basic custard recipe

Ingredients for 1 liter of milk:

• glass of powdered sugar
• 3 yolks and white
• 1 liter of milk
• vanilla pod
• 80 g custard in bags

• Cut the vanilla pod into two halves with a sharp knife
• If there is no vanilla pod, add vanilla powder to the finished cream

• Pour the vanilla halves into a saucepan with milk and put on the fire, bring to a boil

• Break 2 eggs into a bowl
• Separate the yolks from three eggs (whites are not needed) and add them there
• Beat into thick foam

• Add powdered sugar to the eggs and beat vigorously until the yolk turns white.

• Add flour sifted through a sieve, stirring well so that there are no lumps
• The dough turned out like pancakes

• Remove the boiled milk from the heat, remove the vanilla pod
• Pour the milk into the bowl with the dough in a thin stream, stirring constantly

• Transfer the contents of the bowl to the pan where the milk was
• Place the pan on low heat, cook for 5-6 minutes, stir constantly so that the cream does not burn

• Transfer the resulting cream from the pan into a container

• Cover with plastic wrap so that it sticks to the surface of the cream.
• You can brush the cream with melted butter.
• Leave to cool

• Take a pastry bag with a nozzle diameter of 3 mm and begin to fill the empty space in the cakes
• Some profiteroles are filled with vanilla cream, others with chocolate

You can add to the cream:

• soft butter
• heavy cream
• melted black and white chocolate
• ground nuts
• coffee or berry liqueur
• fresh berries and fruits
• citrus zest

It’s good if the cakes have different fillings - this will enrich and diversify the taste of the dessert.

Caramel for Croquembouche

The whole highlight of the French Croquembouche cake is in the caramel, which decorates and glues the cakes together. The difficulty is not in preparing caramel, but in the ability to apply it correctly to the surface of the cakes without getting burned. If you are an inexperienced housewife, think carefully about whether it is worth taking on such a complex task.

Caramel is prepared in three ways:

• with a minimum amount of water so that it covers the sugar
• dry method - without water
• sugar with glucose syrup

The first two methods are understandable; everyone in childhood made caramel from burnt sugar at least once.

Classic caramel recipe

Ingredients for caramel:

• Sugar 200 g
• water 50 g

Preparation:

1. Take a pan with thick walls and bottom, pour in sugar
2. Fill with water and place on medium heat
3. Stir, not allowing it to burn and stick to the walls of the pan and the bottom.
4. The color of the sugar changes, becomes amber, the whole process takes 8-10 minutes
5. Drop the caramel into cold water and try to form a ball, if it works, then the caramel is ready

Dry caramel recipe

The recipe for making caramel without water is practically no different from the classic one:

1. Scatter 200 g of sugar over the bottom of a thick-walled frying pan and begin heating until melted.
2. Stir constantly with a silicone spatula and try to remove sugar from the walls and bottom of the pan.
3. If you see smoke, you need to reduce the gas to a minimum.

The French themselves use a third method for producing caramel glaze.

Recipe for colored caramel with glucose syrup

Ingredients:

• 500 mg sugar
• 100 ml glucose syrup
• food coloring

We prepare caramel with glucose syrup according to the classic recipe; at the end you can add food coloring.

Glucose syrup (invert), can be bought or made at home

Ingredients:

• half a cup hot water
• sugar 300 g
• citric acid on the tip of a knife
• soda on the tip of a knife

Preparation:

1. Pour hot water over sugar and mix well
2. Bring the syrup to a boil over low heat
3. Finally add citric acid
4. Remove from heat and after a couple of minutes add soda
5. The liquid will “boil” - this is the soda neutralizing the acid

Caramel decorations

The classic Croquembouche cake is decorated with caramel threads; for this we use a special tool or fork.

1. Prepare caramel according to the recipe you like.
2. Using a fork, pull out the caramel threads from its surface.
3. We cover the table with foil greased with vegetable oil or use a silicone tray so that the caramel and caramel threads do not stick to the surface.
4. Apply caramel directly to the cake or to a greased surface.
5. Easy to remove with a spatula.

You can buy stamps for caramel on the Internet and in specialized stores. They can be used to make interesting decorations for the Croquembouche cake:

• We take the stamp out of the freezer and immerse it in hot caramel

• Caramel sticks to the surface of the stamp, repeating its shape

• After lying on a cold plate for some time, the caramel figure itself lags behind the stamp

In the old-fashioned way, a stamp can be cut out of carrots, beets and potatoes and make a beautiful caramel decoration for any confectionery product and for the Croquembouche dessert.

Decorations are made shortly before serving the dessert and stored in a cool room, but not in the refrigerator, so that the caramel does not melt.

How to assemble a Croquembouche?

The cake can be small for several people or huge for special occasions with many cakes that need to be combined into a single whole.

Assembling Croquembouche without special tools

If the cake is small:

1. Take a flat dish and lay out the cakes
2. Glue at the point of contact
3. With each row, the diameter of the cakes laid out in a circle narrows.

This cake will hold its shape reliably and does not require special skills or equipment to assemble it.

If the cake is made from a large number of cakes, in order to give the dessert a pyramid shape, you need to make a paper cone from oiled or polished paper. Special metal or silicone molds are sold.

Cakes are laid out in different ways:

1. Along the surface of the cone
2. Inside the cone, filling the “bag”

Croquembouche made from profiteroles laid out on the surface of a cone

For this assembly, you will need a hard plastic, silicone or metal cone.

• Decorate cakes with buttercream with caramel glaze, dipping in caramel tinted with red dye

• Place half of the cakes, caramel side down, on a silicone or oiled surface.

• We decorate the other half of the cakes differently - dip caramel in sugar (coconut flakes, ground nuts)
• Shake off excess sugar

• Dip the cakes into caramel, place them in rows around the cone, gluing them together

• We alternate the rows, the result is a beautiful pyramid

• When the caramel has hardened, remove the cake from the cone, however, you can leave it and serve it with it.

• Decorate the top with berries, nuts and threads of caramel or caramel figures

The cake is ready, ready to serve!

Croquembouche inside a cone

You can make the cone for assembling the cake yourself from thick polished or oiled paper. We choose the size according to the number of cakes.

• Turn the cone over with the pointed end down for convenience.
• Insert the end into a tall dish
• Dip the cakes in glaze and fill the “bag”
• Let's start with one cake

• Place tightly, but do not press too hard

• When the bag is completely filled, let the caramel harden.
• Turn the cone over and remove it

We decorate the surface with caramel threads, the cake is ready!

Croquembouche by Lisa Glinskaya

Pastry chef Liza Glinskaya, winner of the Ukrainian Master Chef project, has her own recipe for the French dessert Croquembouche.

Features include:

• using milk in dough
• together with butter we add vegetable oil to the composition

Ingredients for 600-700 g of choux pastry:

• 150 g flour
• half a glass of water
• half a glass of milk
• 50 g softened butter, 50 ml vegetable oil
• medium-sized eggs 5 pcs., if large 4 pcs.
• salt on the tip of a knife
• Art. l. sugar without top

Custard from chef Lisa Glinskaya

Many will be surprised by the unusual ingredients, but it’s worth a try, because the chef claims that the cake will turn out very tasty and tender.

Features of cream for profiteroles from Lisa Glinskaya:

• For the cream we take a mixture of vegetable and butter
• only one yolk, which distinguishes it from the classic recipe

Ingredients for custard:

• wheat flour 1 tbsp. l.
• corn starch 2.5 tbsp. l.
• milk - 500 ml.
• 1 yolk
• 1/2 tbsp. tablespoons vegetable oil and butter
• pure vanilla 1/2 teaspoon
• 4 tbsp. l. Sahara

Ingredients for caramel:

• 50 ml water
• 8 tbsp. l. Sahara

A few tips from the chef:

1. To prevent the dough from turning out liquid, add eggs one at a time.
2. The dough should flow from the spoon in a smooth, dense ribbon.
3. The distance between the cakes should not be less than 3 cm.
4. The temperature in the heated cabinet, when we place the tray with profiteroles, should be about 200° C, then lower it to 160° C, bake for 10 minutes.
5. We prepare the caramel in small portions; it hardens quickly; if it is heated, it becomes dark and burns.

The shape of the cake resembles a Christmas tree, which predetermines its purpose. Croquembouche cake is a popular dessert on the Christmas and New Year's table in European countries. If you add green food coloring to the dough, pistachio paste to the cream and decorate the dessert with sweet toys, your edible Christmas tree is ready!

Video: French Christmas cake Croquembouche from Lisa Glinskaya

Croquembouche for a wedding

For creative newlyweds who want to surprise their guests, French chefs offer an unusual Croquembouche wedding cake, which is traditionally served in France at the end of the wedding party. Croquembouche differs in design from the generally accepted multi-tiered airy pink and white wedding cakes, but is just as beautiful and festive.

The cake is decorated with candied flowers, figures of the bride and groom, and festive fireworks are inserted into it. You don't need a knife for this dessert; each guest will get their own cake from the majestic Croquembouche wedding design.

We bring to your attention a photo of the Croquembouche wedding cake:

If you are passionate about cooking and for you cooking is a real adventure and a journey through the food map, try making an original French dessert. The Croquembouche cake is an English wedding tradition, with French sophistication and the charm of serving desserts.

Video: Christmas Croquembouche