Recipe Dairy free and Gluten free chocolate eclairs

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First of all, there are 3 separate 'recipes' here . One for the dough for the actual eclairs, then there is the filling which is optional, you could opt for dairy free yoghurt or dairy free ice cream and finally there is the (optional , hey who are we kidding here ?) dairy free chocolate icing.

So I was pointed in the direction of a dairy free gluten free coffee eclair recipe (here https://www.theguardian.com/lifeand...-free-coffee-vanilla-creme-patissiere-eclairs) which I tried out and it failed completely. So after some reading (thank you @morning glory) I followed my gut ,made a whole host of changes, some to the ingredients and some to the cooking process and came up with something that works .

A word of warning, this really only makes 6 1/2 eclairs that are quite short actually!

Ingredients
Choux pastry
50g cornflour
20g pure vegetable fat (such as Trex)
90ml water
2 large egg, beaten
1/4 tsp Xantham gum

Filling

3 egg yolks
15g caster sugar
30g cornflour
½ tsp vanilla extract
300ml soya milk

Icing
1 tbsp boiling water
2 tbsp cocoa powder or 2 chunks of melted vegan dark chocolate
100g icing sugar

Method
Choux pastry / eclair
  1. Preheat the oven to 200C (fan assisted, 220C without). Prep your baking tray by lining it with greaseproof paper but once you have cut it to size, turn it over onto the wrong side and draw up 6 or 7 rectangles that are 12cm long by 2cm wide with a 4cm spacing between rectangles. These are to be your template but the pencil must be on the wrong side else if will transfer to the pastry whilst it is cooking. If you are doubling this recipe, then double the number of rectangles you draw, if you want traditional longer eclairs that may bend when you pick them up, draw longer, timber eclairs, 15cm by 1.5cm will get you around 6 eclairs (these will take less time to cook so watch them carefully) but 15cm by 2cm will only get you 4 eclairs.
  2. Put the cornflour and xantham gum into a bowl big enough to take all the ingredients and a stick blender without it throwing everything out of the bowl, but small enough so that it can reach all of the ingredients easily. Mix.
  3. Heat the water (weigh it out (90ml = 90g), is easier) and the fat in a small pan until the water boils and the fat has melted.
  4. Pour the boiling mixture into the cornflour and mix well. It will form a solid lump ,don't worry. Allow it to cool a touch.
    1. DSC_4000.JPG
  5. You need to have around 120g of beaten eggs minimum. Don't worry if it's more but if it's less you'll need another egg handy. Now pour 3/4's to most of the beaten egg into the cornflour mixture and beat well, very well with the stick blender. You want a nice smooth mixture that when it is scraped off the sides will hold its shape only settling a little, but is as wet as it can be to achieve this. Add more egg and beat again until you get the dough as wet as possible without it sinking into the bowl when pulled up into a ball.
    1. DSC_4002.JPG
  6. Carefully put the mixture into a plastic bag (I weighed mine first), then weigh it . It makes life easier if you know roughly how much dough you have. Mine came in at 235g and the bag was 7g. I rounded up and worked with 230g. Each eclair used about 35-40g of dough at 10cm by 2cm. That gave me just over 6 eclairs. Now cut off the corner so it is a little over 1.5cm on the longest edge (the edge you made). Seal the bag, work the dough to the cut corner and pipe the eclairs out onto the templates. A knife came in handy for cutting the dough off at the end of each eclair.
    1. DSC_4005.JPG
  7. Put the eclairs into the oven and cook for 10 minutes minimum before you look (glass fronted ovens come in handy here) . Mine took 15 mins to cook at 200°C in a fan assisted oven. Once they are going brown, wedge a wooden spoon or similar into the door and leave it ajar with the oven switched off and the eclairs in the oven still , for an hour minimum.
    1. DSC_4013.JPG
Filling (egg custard)
  1. If you're using dairy free ice cream, get the topping ready and be ready to serve immediately. Set the soya milk (or any other dairy free milk) heading in a pan. You need to bring it to the boil.
  2. Meanwhile whisk the egg yolks with the caster sugar until it forms a cream and it much lighter than previously.
  3. Whisk in the cornflour and vanilla to the egg mixture ensuring it is smooth and not lumpy.
  4. Now add in some of the boiling soya milk and whisk thoroughly. Pour in the remaining soya milk and mix thoroughly before pouring it all back into the pan and bringing it to a boil . Stir until it stops thickening and then cook for a few minutes longer. Take off the heat, cover with a lid and allow to cool completely.
Chocolate icing
  1. Mix the cocoa powder and the icing sugar carefully before adding the water and stirring to form a thick paste. Add more boiling water if needed . If using solid chocolate, melt the chocolate lumps carefully in a bowl in the microwave, add the water and mix well then add the icing sugar and create a slightly runny paste.
Assembly
  1. Cut the eclairs in half lengthways. I left the back uncut but you can do either.
  2. Add the filling to the bottom half of each eclair (be generous), then place the top half back onto the eclair (or fold it back over)
  3. Spread the chocolate icing onto the top half of each eclair and serve .
(completed photos to follow when I've got some eggs for the filling! )
 
Gosh - I'm glad you eventually got the recipe to work. Silly question perhaps but why were you attempting gluten free? Its much more difficult!
 
Gosh - I'm glad you eventually got the recipe to work. Silly question perhaps but why were you attempting gluten free? Its much more difficult!
Try finding dairy free that isn't gluten free. It's really hard.
I have done a quick search this morning and failed. Gluten free bus with dairy free filling, yep they can be found but they have butter in the buns. That's enough dairy to kill me. But I did find out where that disastrous recipe came from. https://purefreefrom.co.uk/blog/dairy-free-chocolate-eclairs. Switching Pure dairy free marg which is a soft marg for 100% hard veg fat which is what the Guardian writer did was never going to work because of the difference in water content and the difference in texture (soft margarine to hard, solid margarine). That's why the recipe failed.

Sadly too many people think you have to start with gluten free and then make it dairy free as well. I get it all the time in cafes and restaurants. Ask if the have dairy free and I'll get the answer, no but we have gluten free! It drives me mad. :banghead:
 
Try finding dairy free that isn't gluten free. It's really hard.
I have done a quick search this morning and failed. Gluten free bus with dairy free filling, yep they can be found but they have butter in the buns. That's enough dairy to kill me. But I did find out where that disastrous recipe came from. https://purefreefrom.co.uk/blog/dairy-free-chocolate-eclairs. Switching Pure dairy free marg which is a soft marg for 100% hard veg fat which is what the Guardian writer did was never going to work because of the difference in water content and the difference in texture (soft margarine to hard, solid margarine). That's why the recipe failed.

Sadly too many people think you have to start with gluten free and then make it dairy free as well. I get it all the time in cafes and restaurants. Ask if the have dairy free and I'll get the answer, no but we have gluten free! It drives me mad. :banghead:


When I'm ready to do it again, I'll just go back to the old-school way of doing it. I'm old-school!! :wink:
 
When I'm ready to do it again, I'll just go back to the old-school way of doing it. I'm old-school!! :wink:
That's fine for people without a fatal allergy to dairy. I'm not just trying to avoid dairy because I'm vegan (plus my own chooks' eggs). I'm absolutely fine with gluten though.
 
I've said this many times but as I'm allergic to dairy and husband is allergic to gluten, I have to cook this way. I can't have gluten in the house for risk of cross contamination. I'm not so sensitive to dairy but I do think there is more risk with gluten cross contamination due to flour dust.

Anyway. I agree more places do gluten free these days but in the UK as veganism is becoming more popular it is easier to get food in cafes/restaurants that are without dairy.

I've tried choux pastry before and failed but I'll give this recipe a go. Having said that, Tesco (supermarket) now do own brand gluten and dairy free éclairs and they are amazing (probably not that great but I have nothing to compare them to.)
 
I've tried and failed a couple of times, eclaires and churros? Are my nemesis. Not much better luck with bread either.
Mg, would you like to share your recipe for eclaires, I'll give it one more shot.

Russ
 
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I've tried and failed a couple of times, eclaires and churros? Are my nemesis. Not much better luck with bread either.
Mg, would you like to share your recipe for eclaires, I'll give it one more shot.

Russ

I think I copied the recipe out and left it at home - I'm away at the moment but will look it up when I get back.
 
Try finding dairy free that isn't gluten free. It's really hard.

:scratchhead:Sorry - I don't understand. The classic basic recipe simply uses plain white flour - which is what I used. In fact I used white bread flour for added structure. Are you meaning that if its dairy free you can't use wheat flour? I'd just substitute vegetable margarine for the butter. I guess I need to try it!
 
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I'm not sure, but I think that if you follow this recipe, you will get very delicious eclairs. Who has already tried to use this recipe? How do you like it? I've been looking for the perfect eclair recipe for quite some time, but I haven't found anything yet. Once I was traveling in another country and accidentally came across eclairs in copenhagen. This was my coolest discovery in recent years, as I had never tried such eclairs before in my life. I also tried to cook something similar several times, but unfortunately I did not succeed. Also, I'm really interested to know how you decorate your pastries. Is there a separate topic dedicated to decorating dishes? (Sorry for the stupid questions, but I'm new to this forum and haven't fully figured it out yet).
 
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