Eclair Cupcakes

I've just recently started making eclairs so this recipe was a bit of a challenge. It came about because my lovely niece, Heather, sent me a photo she had seen on Instagram of these decadent eclair cupcakes from a shop in the US. I decided to do a little research and see if I could recreate them. 

I did find one or two recipes making eclairs in muffin tins but they were small and flat and not at all as impressive looking as the Instagram photo. After a little trial and error I came up with this version and it seems to be a hit! 

They can be a little tricky once they come out of the oven because you have to be careful they don't deflate, but other than that they are pretty simple to whip up! You can make a true pastry cream to fill them or just use the "cheat" I use here. It's still amazingly tasty! 

Eclair Cupcakes

Ingredients

Eclairs

1 cup water

1/2 cup butter

1 Tbsp sugar

1 cup flour

4 eggs

Cream Filling

2 cups heavy cream

1 pkg vanilla pudding

Chocolate Ganache

1 cup chocolate chips

1 tsp coconut oil

Directions

Preheat oven to 425. Line 11 muffin cups with paper baking liners. Set aside.

In a saucepan, boil water, butter, and sugar. Stir in flour until well combined.  Remove from heat and rest 2 minutes. 

Beat in the eggs, one at a time, until dough is glossy.

Drop into the lined paper cups. (I used one scoop of a large cookie scoop, and one scoop of a small cookie scoop.) Don't smooth the top, you want it to be bumpy so there is nooks and crannies on top. 

Bake at 425 for 8 minutes. 

Reduce heat to 350 and continue to bake for 30 more minutes, until tops are golden brown.

Turn the oven off and let sit in the oven for an additional 10 minutes. 

I originally took them out and placed them on a wire rack but the weight started to deflate the bottoms. So I placed them into another muffin tin (one that hadn't been in the oven) and let them cool to room temp. 

While they are cooling, prepare the cream.

In a mixing bowl, beat together the whip cream and vanilla pudding until stiff. Place in piping bag and squeeze into cooled eclairs. Be sure to squeeze a lot in there!!! You want to fill the bottom of the eclair - you should see it bulge out a little. 

Prepare chocolate ganache - place chocolate chips and coconut oil in a microwave safe bowl. 

Heat for one minute and then stir. Microwave in 15 second intervals, stirring well in between, until smooth. Use a spoon to spread the ganache on top of each eclair cupcake, making sure to cover all the little nooks. You may have a little leftover. 

Chill until ready to serve.

The chocolate will solidify once it is chilled. This makes things a little less messy. 

Look at all that lovely cream stuffed in there! 

You should use all the cream on the 11 eclair cupcakes. 

You could probably stretch this out and get 12 cupcakes BUT then they won't be as large. I was going for big and puffy and bumpy.... not small and smooth. But you could totally go that route if you wanted to. 

FYI - these freeze quite well if you want to make them up ahead of time otherwise they are best eaten the day they are made - the next day at the latest. They will start to go a little weird after that. 

And... don't worry if the bottoms deflate a bit! When you squish all that cream in there it will puff out again. :) 

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