🎶 on the eleventh day of christmas, my true love gave to me… 11 mini butterscotch éclairs…
10 cranberry pineapple upside down cakes
9 mini lemon tarts
8 mini coconut cakes
7 tiny slices of almond cake
6 eggnog pots de creme
5 chocolate peppermint mini cupcakes
4 mini cranberry bundt cakes
3 mini lemon ricotta loaves
2 mini sorghum ginger cookies
and a mini chai latte cupcake. 🎶
Day 11 of 12 {mini} days of Christmas features these little two-bite mini éclairs that are bursting with butterscotch pastry cream and covered butterscotch sauce.
🎄welcome to the 12 {mini} days of christmas – day #11! 🎄
If you’re wondering “why mini?” click on over to the first post in this series to find out. Otherwise, let’s talk about these mini butterscotch éclairs…
At my husband’s company Christmas party this year, there were two large rooms entirely devoted to mini desserts. Tables of tiny beautifully decorated cookies, cakes, and pastries, each in their own little wrapper. One of the mini desserts was butterscotch éclairs which were so tasty I had to add them to this series.
The thing about choux pastry…
Choux pastry is one of those foods that that can be turned into an endless variety of appetizers, desserts, even main dishes. It’s like pie crust. You want it to taste good all by itself, but it’s not designed to ever be served without something in it.
Choux pastry (also called pâte à choux, or choux paste), is one of those miracles of the kitchen, where 4 simple ingredients – flour, water, butter, and eggs – are transformed into buttery little puffs of dough with a hard outer shell and a nearly hollow interior that’s perfect for stuffing.
But, there are a few things you really have to get right when making choux pastry, or your puffs will not puff. Or, they’ll puff, but then fall in on themselves. Neither of these situations will allow you to stuff them – which is the entire point of making them in the first place.
Making Pâte à Choux
Pâte à choux is made by forming a dough while cooking butter, water, and flour on the stovetop, and then incorporating a few eggs. It’s important that you don’t skimp on the initial cooking time. Cooking the dough drys it out and removes that raw flour taste.
The potentially tricky part is adding the eggs. It’s really important that you end up with a firm dough. If you add too many eggs the dough will be too wet. If your dough is too wet, it won’t hold its shape when you pipe it, and probably won’t puff in the oven. Or, it will puff in the oven and then collapse in on itself.
This is why the recipe instructs you to add the eggs bit by bit. The goal is to add only as many eggs as the dough will hold. Whether you’ll need 3 or 4 eggs depends on several different factors including how humid the air in your kitchen is and the kind of flour you’re using. The dough is ready when it is soft and very smooth and will hold its shape. If you lift the beater from the dough, it should form a stiff peak that very slowly folds over itself.
Pastry Cream and Butterscotch Sauce
These little mini éclairs are stuffed with my absolute favorite pastry cream which is flavored with my absolutely favorite butterscotch sauce. Both are easy to make and can be made in advance. The butterscotch sauce will keep in the refrigerator for a few weeks, the pastry cream for a few days.
Using a jar of purchased butterscotch sauce will work perfectly well, of course. But, making it takes only about 15 minutes.
Used in this recipe:
Mini Butterscotch Éclairs
Mini Butterscotch Éclairs
- Yield: 38-42 two-inch eclairs 1x
Print Recipe
Pin RecipeIngredients
- 1 recipe Butterscotch Sauce, chilled (You’ll need about 2 1/2 cups)
FOR THE PASTRY CREAM:
- 1 tsp unflavored gelatin
- 2 tsp cold water
- 1 1/4 cups whole milk
- 1/3 cup granulated sugar
- ¼ tsp salt
- 4 large egg yolks
- 3 tbsp cornstarch
- 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
FOR THE CHOUX PASTRY:
- 1 cup water
- 1 stick (1/2 cup or 4 oz) butter
- 1 tbsp granulated sugar
- ¾ tsp salt
- 1 cup unbleached all purpose flour
- 3–4 large eggs
FOR THE WHITE CHOCOLATE GANACHE (OPTIONAL – FOR DECORATING):
- 6 oz white chocolate
- 1/4 cup heavy cream
- 1/2 tbsp butter
Instructions
MAKE THE PASTRY CREAM:
- In a small dish, stir the gelatin and water together to combine. There should be just enough water to moisten the gelatin, creating a thick paste. Set aside.
- Add milk, sugar, salt, egg yolks and cornstarch to a medium sized heavy bottomed saucepan and whisk vigorously to combine. Bring to a boil over medium heat, whisking constantly, at which point the mixture will have thickened to the point that the whisk will leave tracks as you stir. Remove from the heat and whisk vigorously for 30 seconds longer. Pour into a bowl.
- Break the gelatin into small pieces, dropping them into the hot pastry cream. Whisk until the gelatin is completely incorporated, about 20 seconds. Whisk in vanilla. Cover with plastic wrap, pressing the wrap over the surface of the pastry cream, and punch a few holes in the surface of the wrap with a sharp knife. Refrigerate for at least 3 hours and up to 2 days.
MAKE THE ECLAIR PASTRY SHELLS (CHOUX PASTRY):
- Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Cover one large or two small baking sheets with parchment paper and fit a pastry bag with a 1/2-inch round tip. Or, fit a bag with a coupler only, which also works well. Set the bag, tip side down, inside a tall drinking glass, fold the top down a couple of inches, and set aside.
- Add the water, butter, sugar, and salt to a medium size, heavy bottom saucepan. Cook, stirring constantly, over medium-high heat until the mixture comes to a rolling boil with bubbles covering the entire surface. Boil rapidly for 1 minute.
- Turn the heat to medium-low and add the flour all at once to the boiling liquid. Stir the flour and liquid vigorously with a wooden spoon or rubber spatula to form a dough. Cook for 5-8 minutes, mashing it against the sides and bottom of the pan and then gathering it up into a ball again, until the dough is smooth and a thin floury film has formed across the bottom of the pan. The surface of the dough should look glossy and be thick enough that you can stand a spoon upright in the middle.
- Dump the dough into the bowl of a standing mixer fitted with the paddle attachment and stir on low speed for 5 minutes to allow the dough to cool before adding the eggs.
- Whisk 3 of the eggs together in a small bowl. Turn the mixer to medium-high and add the eggs in 4 small additions scrapping down the sides of the bowl after beating in each egg. After each addition, beat at medium-high speed until completely incorporated before adding the next. After the third addition, check the dough. The dough is ready when it’s soft and very smooth, and is able to hold its shape. If you lift the beater from the dough, it should form a peak that slowly folds in on itself. If the dough seems too stiff, add the fourth addition of eggs and check it again. If the dough still seems too stiff, add the fourth egg, bit by bit, until you’ve achieved the right consistency.
- Spoon the dough into the pastry bag and pipe 38-42 two-inch eclairs onto the parchment covered baking sheet, spacing them at least 1-inch apart.
- Bake at 425 degrees for 12 minutes, at which point the eclairs should have puffed.
- Turn the temperature of the oven down to 375 degrees and bake for another 15 minutes, until they are golden brown and dry to the touch. Turn the baking sheet halfway through baking to ensure even browning.
- Turn the oven down to 300 degrees and bake for another 10-15 minutes. If you break one open, it should not be wet or eggy inside.
- Remove from the oven and, using a sharp paring knife, cut a small slit in one of the ends of the pastries to release any trapped steam. Allow to cool completely before filling.
FILL AND DECORATE THE MINI ÉCLAIRS:
- If decorating with white chocolate ganache, put the white chocolate into a small bowl. Heat the cream in the microwave until boiling – about 30 seconds. Pour the hot cream over the white chocolate and let stand for 3 minutes. Stir until smooth. If the white chocolate is not completely melted after stirring for a few minutes, heat it in the microwave in 15-second intervals until melted. Stir in the butter. Set aside to cool, stirring from time to time, until it’s of a good piping consistency.
- Put the pastry cream and 1/2 cup of butterscotch sauce in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment. Beat on medium high speed for about 1 minute, until the butterscotch has been completely incorporated and the cream is smooth.
- Fit a pastry bag with a small round decorator tip and fill with butterscotch pastry cream. Poke the tip through the bottom of the eclair shells and squeeze as much pastry cream as you can into the center of the shell.
- Pour the remaining butterscotch sauce into a shallow bowl and dip the tops of the filled eclairs into the sauce to coat.
- Fit another pastry bag with a small round tip and fill with white chocolate ganache. Pipe designs onto the tops of the butterscotch glazed eclairs. Store the eclairs in the refrigerator until ready to serve, up to 1 day.
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