Lemon and Raspberry Eclairs

Apr 1, 2018
3 min read

These eclairs are amazing and delicious you can taste the lemon in the lemon ones. they also look very professional and complex. They do take some baking skill and equipment but they are entirely worth it.

I did not have any freeze-dried raspberry powder so i used some frozen raspberries instead. they give the desired colour and leave beautiful darker streaks in the cream but they only taste of cream apart from the single raspberry places on top. Also i accidentally added too much yellow colouring so it now looks nuclear, i would keep the lemon icing to a mellow yellow and not so acid looking!

Ingredients:

For the choux pastry

50g butter, cut into cubes, plus extra for greasing
65g plain flour
2 large free-range eggs, beaten

For the filling

600ml double cream
6 tbsp lemon curd
2 tbsp freeze-dried raspberry powder

For the icing

400g icing sugar
½ lemon, juice only
pink food colouring paste
yellow food colouring paste
100g white chocolate drops, melted
100g dark chocolate drops, melted

Method:

Preheat the oven to 200C. Line two large baking trays with baking parchment..
For the choux pastry, put the butter and 150m water in a small pan over a low heat. Bring slowly to the boil, tip in the flour, then remove from the heat. Stir vigorously.
When the mixture becomes a smooth paste, return the pan to the heat, stirring constantly. The mixture will dry out a little and form a soft ball that comes away from the sides of the pan.
Remove the pan from the heat again, leave the mixture to cool slightly, then gradually add the eggs, beating really well between each addition until the mixture is smooth and glossy.
Spoon the éclair mixture into a large piping bag fitted with a 1cm plain nozzle. Pipe the mixture onto the baking sheets into 7.5cm lengths, leaving room between each éclair for them to spread a bit.
Bake for 10 minutes, then reduce the heat to 170C and bake for a further 20 minutes. Split each éclair in half lengthways and transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
For the filling, whip the cream to soft peaks. Divide the cream into separate bowls and fold the lemon curd into one bowl of cream and the raspberry powder into the other.
Once the éclairs have cooled, spoon the lemon cream into a piping bag fitted with a 1cm plain nozzle and pipe the lemon cream into the bottom half of six éclairs, then spoon the raspberry cream into the piping bag and pipe into the bottom half of the remaining éclairs.
For the icing, place half the icing sugar in a bowl and mix with enough lemon juice to form a very stiff icing. Colour with the yellow food colouring and spoon into a disposable piping bag.
Tip the remaining icing sugar into a bowl and add enough water to make a very stiff icing.
Colour with the pink food colouring and spoon into a disposable piping bag. Snip the ends off the piping bags and pipe on top of the raspberry éclairs. Spread the icing out using a palette knife dipped in boiling water, so the top is smooth.
Repeat with the yellow icing on the remaining six eclairs. Place on top of the lemon cream filled eclairs.
Place whole fresh raspberries at the end of each raspberry eclair and serve.