Cream Puffs (Éclairs)

Make the choux pastry. Pour the water into a saucepan, add the butter and salt, and bring to a boil.

Add all the flour at once and start stirring.

Once the dough comes together into a ball, keep stirring for another minute so the flour is fully cooked. Then remove from heat and let cool until just warm.

Lightly beat the eggs in a separate bowl. Gradually add the eggs to the dough in small portions, beating thoroughly with a mixer or stirring vigorously with a sturdy spoon after each addition.

The result should be a smooth, pliable dough.

Transfer the dough to a sturdy zip-top bag or piping bag, seal it, and snip off a corner about 1.5–2 cm wide. Draw guidelines on parchment paper — the éclairs should be 12 cm long — then flip the paper over. This dough makes about 20 éclairs, so they won't all fit on one baking sheet; I baked them in two batches. Pipe the dough onto the baking sheet in logs.

Bake in an oven preheated to 180°C (350°F) for about 25–35 minutes. Let the finished éclairs cool completely.

Make the Charlotte buttercream. Combine the egg, sugar, vanilla sugar, and milk in a saucepan and whisk until smooth.

Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture thickly coats the back of a spatula. Let the syrup cool completely.

Beat the butter until noticeably pale and fluffy. The butter should be at room temperature and soft (take it out of the refrigerator ahead of time).

Then gradually add the cooled syrup, beating until smooth after each addition. Add the cognac as well.

If your cream has broken (split), it's easy to fix. That actually happened to me this time — I had made the syrup the day before and added it straight from the fridge, and I poured it in too fast — so the cream split a bit. I scooped out about a quarter of the cream into a separate bowl and melted it in the microwave until fully liquid, then poured it back into the rest of the cream while beating continuously. The cream came back together perfectly — smooth, uniform, and silky!

Fill the éclairs. If you have a long, narrow piping tip, you can fill them the way store-bought éclairs are filled — through a single small hole. If not, you can use a piping bag with any small-diameter tip, but to fill the éclair completely you'll want to make three holes so the cream reaches every part of the shell — because nothing is worse than a half-empty éclair!

Or you can use the simplest method: just make a neat horizontal slit along the side of the éclair. Open it up slightly and fill with cream using a teaspoon.

Then press it closed again. That's how I filled most of mine. Once filled, be sure to refrigerate the éclairs until completely chilled — at least 2–3 hours. They taste so much better this way, as the buttercream sets up to the right texture.

Classic GOST éclairs were traditionally coated with a fondant glaze — made from powdered sugar, either plain white or tinted with cocoa for a chocolate version. But making proper fondant at home is quite tricky — it requires a thermometer, experience, and patience. Even though I have all of the above, I went ahead and coated my éclairs with a simple chocolate ganache instead. In my opinion, it tastes significantly better than fondant, and I'd recommend you do the same! Melt the chocolate and butter in pieces together in the microwave or over a double boiler until smooth.

You can either dip the éclair into the ganache (as shown on the left in the photo) or brush it on with a pastry brush (right). As you can see, the brushed version looks neater, and the ganache layer ends up thinner and more even.

And here's the cross-section.

These éclairs turn out absolutely delicious! I loved them — the flavor is exactly right. My husband was especially impressed, and my daughter got hooked on them too, so they disappeared one by one in no time!