What Is an Éclair? Choux, Cream and a Glossy Top

An éclair is a long finger of choux pastry filled with cream and glazed on top. Here is how it is made, where it comes from, and how to tell a good one.

An éclair is a finger-shaped choux pastry, baked until hollow, filled with pastry cream and finished with a shiny glaze, most often chocolate. It should be crisp outside, soft inside, and eaten the day it is made. In French the word means a flash of lightning, which many say describes how quickly one disappears.

Where the éclair comes from

The éclair took shape in nineteenth-century France. The great Parisian pastry cook Antonin Carême is often credited with refining it, though the exact origin is not recorded with certainty. What is clear is that by the late 1800s it was a fixture of French patisseries, and from there it travelled with French and Greek confectioners to every Mediterranean port, Alexandria included.

How choux pastry works

Choux is cooked twice. Butter, water and flour are stirred over heat into a paste, eggs are beaten in, and the dough is piped into lines. In the oven the water turns to steam and puffs the pastry from inside, leaving a hollow shell. That hollow is what holds the cream. Underbaked choux collapses; overbaked choux turns dry and brittle.

The filling and the glaze

The classic filling is crème pâtissière, a thick custard of milk, egg yolks, sugar and a little starch, flavoured with vanilla, chocolate or coffee. The top is dipped in fondant or a chocolate glaze. A good éclair has a clean, even glaze, a shell that gives slightly when bitten, and a filling that reaches both ends.

Crisp shell, cool cream, a glaze you can see your face in.

How to eat and keep one

Eat éclairs on the day they are filled, ideally within a few hours. Keep them cool but not icy, and bring them out of the fridge a few minutes before serving so the cream softens. They pair well with a Greek coffee, whose bitterness balances the sweet glaze.

Order éclairs from Délices

Call us to order éclairs or plan it for a gathering: +20 3 486 1432. We're at 46 Saad Zaghloul Street, Raml Station, open daily 8 AM – 1 AM.