Winter

Meyer Lemon Eclairs

by:
January  8, 2014
3.4
5 Ratings
Meyer Lemon Eclairs
Photo by yossy arefi
  • Makes 12 to 18 eclairs
Author Notes

This recipe uses Tartine's Genius Lemon Cream to fill classic french choux pastry for a super fresh twist on traditional eclairs. —Yossy Arefi

What You'll Need
Ingredients
  • Meyer Lemon Cream
  • 10 tablespoons meyer lemon juice
  • 3 large eggs
  • 1 large egg yolk
  • 3/4 cup sugar
  • 1 pinch salt
  • 1 cup unsalted butter
  • 1/2 cup heavy cream
  • Pâte à Choux and Glaze
  • 1 cup water
  • 6 tablespoons unsalted butter, cool but pliable
  • 2 teaspoons sugar
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1 cup flour
  • 4 large eggs
  • Meyer Lemon Glaze
  • 1 meyer lemon, zest and juice
  • 1 to 1 1/2 cups confectioner's sugar
Directions
  1. For the Meyer Lemon Cream: Pour about 2 inches of water into a saucepan and bring to a simmer over medium heat.
  2. Combine the lemon juice, eggs, egg yolk, sugar, and salt in a stainless steel bowl that will rest securely over the water without coming into contact with the water. (Never let the egg yolks and sugar sit together for more than a moment without stirring; the sugar will cook the yolks and turn them granular.) Place the bowl over the saucepan and whisk until the mixture becomes very thick and registers 180° F on a thermometer, about 10 to 12 minutes.
  3. Remove the bowl from over the water and let the mixture cool to 140° F, stirring from time to time to release the heat.
  4. Meanwhile, cut butter into tablespoon-sized pieces. When the cream is cooled transfer it to a blender and with the blender running, add the butter 1 tablespoon at a time, blending after each addition until incorporated before adding the next piece. The cream will be pale yellow and opaque and quite thick.
  5. Chill the lemon cream completely, then in a separate bowl, whisk the heavy cream. Fold the whipped cream into the lemon cream and chill until ready to fill the eclairs.
  6. For the Pâté a Choux: Preheat oven to 425º F.
  7. Combine the water, butter, sugar, and salt in a saucepan. Heat over medium until the butter has melted completely.
  8. Remove the pan from the heat and add in all of the flour at once. Stir quickly with a wooden spoon until the mixture is smooth and pulls away from the sides of the pan. Let the mixture cool for a few minutes.
  9. Add in the eggs one at a time, stirring to incorporate each egg completely before adding the next one.
  10. In a small bowl, beat the additional egg with one tablespoon of water.
  11. Spoon the mixture into a pastry bag with a large round tip (or a bag with the corner cut) and pipe even strips about 1 inch by 5 inches long onto a lined baking sheet. Smooth any peaks or rough edges with a wet finger and brush the strips with an egg wash. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes or until golden brown. Cool completely before filling.
  12. For the Glaze: Whisk the juice, zest, and sugar together until smooth. You want a fairly thick glaze that will not run down the sides of the eclairs
  13. To Assemble: Fill a pastry bag fitted with a bismark tip with the chilled lemon cream mixture. Fill each eclair with a few tablespoons of the cream then dip the top in the meyer lemon glaze. Garnish with candied citrus peel (I used kumquats). Alternately, slice the top third off of each eclair, fill the bottom with a few tablespoons of lemon cream, replace the tops, and drizzle with glaze. Enjoy immediately -- these treats are best the day they are made. Store extra lemon cream in the refrigerator for up to five days.
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Yossy Arefi
Yossy Arefi is a photographer and stylist with a passion for food. During her stint working in restaurant kitchens, Yossy started the blog Apt. 2B Baking Co. where, with her trusty Pentax film camera, she photographs and writes about seasonal desserts and preserves. She currently lives in Brooklyn but will always love her native city of Seattle. Follow her work at apt2bbakingco.blogspot.com & yossyarefi.com.

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8 Reviews

dsdarrow
dsdarrow January 30, 2024
The directions for the pate au choux are incorrect. Following the directions I had a pancake batter. I remembered years ago when I made gourgeres, the dough became thick. I looked up another recipe and you bring the mixture in the pan to a boil, then add flour and it tightens up into a ball right away. Also, the recipe mentions an additional egg for the wash. Are three eggs used in the pate au choux? Again, the other recipe I looked at used four eggs so I didn't do the egg wash.
 
Jamie
Jamie May 11, 2022
I agree with JamesM253. The recipe is flawed and not written for someone with little or no experience. The choux was WAY too thin, the filling was too thin as well. I'm so incredibly disappointed.
 
jamesm253
jamesm253 January 17, 2022
In the most respectful way possible, I am truly not trying to be mean, this is the worst recipe of anything I have ever tried. There are problems in every single step of the process. I am sure the people behind this had good intentions and are great bakers, but this recipe should be reworked completely. Here are the issues:

Filling:
When using the double boiler to make the lemon curd, it is nearly impossible to get to 180º using a normal double boiler setup.
Adding the butter through a blender is a strange and flawed concept and the amount of butter added is too much.
It would be much easier and tastier to make a normal pastry creme/lemon curd using a saucepan, cornstarch, and the usual ingredients. LESS BUTTER
For eclairs, this type of filling is fundamentally wrong. What you end up with is closer to a lemon buttercream for icing a cake rather than a filling. What this should be is a normal lemon curd folded in with whipped cream to make a lemon diplomat cream.

Pastry:
This says to stir the eggs in with the choux flour dough. This is inefficient. Use a stand mixer or hand mixer if available.

Lemon Glaze:
This part of the recipe is just blatantly incorrect. 1-1 1/2 cups of powdered sugar is astronomically less than the amount needed to make a glaze that stays on the eclairs. If you make it as the recipe says, you end up with a lemony sugar liquid. It may be like this because the authors have mixed up the juice of 1 lemon to 1 Meyer lemon. 1 Meyer lemon is much juicer.

Simply put, if the recipe is followed exactly, this turns out poorly.
 
Nathaniel
Nathaniel February 27, 2019
My cream came out too runny. Did anyone else have that problem? I was careful to heat it to exactly 180 and cool it to 140 before adding the butter. I used a hand blender instead of a stand-up blender. Could that have made the difference?
 
Justin
Justin April 5, 2016
My éclairs didn't rise enough after I put them in the oven. Before cooking I noticed that my batter was thin so I did add about an additional 1/2 cup of flour. Any advice on what could have gone wrong?
 
Yamina M.
Yamina M. July 25, 2016
Every time you make choux, do not put the full amount of eggs the recipe calls for, add half of it, and if the consistency isn't right yet, add as much as the recipe calls for, in small quantities. You need the eggs so the eclairs puff up, but too many eggs can make the dough runny affecting the structure.
The whole reason why the amount of eggs varies, is that it'll depend how much you dried the dough beforehand.
 
Lizthechef
Lizthechef January 16, 2014
This looks terrific and my Meyers are ripe!
 
Katheryn's K.
Katheryn's K. January 11, 2014
Omg- these look amazing- I love anything lemon, especially meyer lemon. The glaze, the cream filling and the cream puffs, what a great combination!