Black Forest Eclairs, filled with Crème diplomat, a lovely coating of dark chocolate, and decorated with fresh cherries. I like eclairs a lot, as you can see there are a few recipes for eclairs on my blog, including one for a cake: Banoffee Eclair Cake.

Because I’m so found of choux pastry, I’ve made a special basic recipe for it. You can see the recipe here, with plenty of details and pictures. For the 8 choux, use the quantities mentioned in the recipe. Make them a little bigger to have 8 instead of 12. Of course you can make 12, but make sure you have enough lovely looking cherries to decorate the eclairs with.

For the filling, I’ve used Crème diplomat because it is a bit lighter, and very delicious. I’ve flavoured it with Monin Black Forest syrup because the idea of making these came after I bought a bottle of syrup. I will make another recipe with this syrup, because I’ve tried it and it is delicious. The flavour is very intense. Of course, you can use other kind of flavouring.
The Crème diplomat will be runnier with the addition of the syrup and that is not an issue for filling the eclairs, but it will not work in other recipes, like for filling a cake.

Ingredients for 8 Black Forest Eclairs:

– 8 choux
– 100ml Monin Black Forest syrup
– 250ml milk
– 25g sugar
– 2 yolks
– 30g plain white flour
– 150ml double cream
– 5g icing sugar
– 50g dark chocolate
– 10ml milk (optional)
– 8 cherries

Make the choux as it says in the recipe. While the choux are baking, you can start to make the crème diplomat. Take into consideration that you need to leave them to cool completely before filling them with the cream. You can leave them in the oven with the door open to dry out a bit more. If not, put them on a cooling rack.

Meanwhile, make the cream patisserie for the crème diplomat. Heat the milk in a saucepan. While the milk is heating, in a bowl, whisk the yolks with sugar until they are pale. Now add the flour and whisk. When the milk has boiled, pour it over the egg mixture. Whisk for one minute or so. Now is time to pour the cream back into the saucepan. Stir continuously for 2-3 minutes over medium heat. When the cream starts to thicken, it means that is ready. Take off the heat and let it to cool down. Stir the cream to cool faster, or place it in a small bowl in an ice water bath.
While the cream gets cold, whip the whipping cream with the icing sugar. When the cream is cold, pour the Black Forest syrup and incorporate. Fold in the whipped cream and the crème diplomat is ready for the choux.

Wash, pat dry, and wipe with a paper towel each cherry. Pick the ones that look best, they should be just as perfect as the black forest eclairs are.

Poke the back of the choux with a knife and fill them with the crème diplomat using a pipping bag. Put them on a plate. In a small bowl, heat the dark chocolate in the microwave or over Bain-Marie. Make sure you don’t burn the chocolate. Stir to make it dissolve at the same time. If using a microwave, take it off a few seconds and stir, repeating this until the chocolate is melted. Add the milk if you want a thinner layer of chocolate. Coat the eclairs in chocolate by dipping them in the chocolate bowl. Put them back on the plate.

Dip each cherry in the remaining chocolate and place them on top of the eclairs. Put the eclairs in the fridge. After 5 minutes, check to see if the cherries are still in the position you want them to be. If not, push them gently in position. After the chocolate has set, they will remain there.
It might look like they are going to fall, but only one of mine has slightly moved and after a little nudge to stay in place, it remained there.

Have you ever had Black Forest Eclairs? What do you think of the crème diplomat?