Eclair Cake
This is the perfect make ahead dessert recipe and it can be made without turning on your oven! Unlike many other versions of eclair cake, mine is made with real pastry cream (no box pudding mixes) and real homemade whipped cream and is smothered with silky chocolate ganache for the absolute best and most authentic eclair taste! I’ll admit, my recipe does take a bit more planning than others out there, but it’s absolutely worth it. Prep your pastry cream a day or two in advance and assemble the cake the night before serving. With just a bit more effort, you have the perfect make ahead dessert. I can’t wait for you to try this one, so let’s get started!
What You Need
Milk & heavy cream. This combination of whole milk and cream provides the perfect amount of fat for a rich, silky, and perfectly thickened pastry cream. You can alternatively substitute half & half for both the cream and milk. Egg yolks. You will need 5 egg yolks to make the pastry cream. They’ll be cooked on the stovetop and help thicken the cream (and they’ll be heated on the stovetop enough to be safe to eat!). Save the egg whites and make yourself pavlova, meringue, or angel food cake!Sugar. Granulated sugar will be cooked into the pastry cream to sweeten it, but in addition to sweetening the pastry cream the sugar must also melt completely in order for it to properly thicken once its cooled. Because of this, It’s important that you not turn your stovetop heat above medium while cooking. You’ll also need powdered sugar, this will be beaten separately with heavy cream to make a homemade whipped cream that helps stabilize the pastry cream and makes up the eclair cake filling.Cornstarch. This is important to properly thicken the pastry cream. While flour is sometimes used instead, I prefer the consistency and results when cornstarch is used. Butter adds richness and a silky smooth mouthfeel to the pastry cream. We use unsalted butter and add salt elsewhere in the recipe to best control the flavor (see my post on salted vs unsalted butter for more information on this!).Graham crackers. These will form the layers of your eclair cake. After resting in the pastry cream for several hours, they soften to a cake-like consistency. For now, I use store-bought graham crackers, but don’t think a recipe for homemade isn’t on my radar for the future!Chocolate. No eclair is complete without a silky smooth chocolate ganache topping, and this one is no exception. Melt chocolate and cream together and stir until smooth before spreading over the cake.
Remember, this is just an overview of the ingredients I used and why. For the full recipe please scroll down to the bottom of the post!
How to Make The Pastry Cream
Many eclair cake recipes start by using vanilla pudding… but from a box. While that would certainly save time, it’s simply not nearly as good! Today we’re making a real pastry cream, the same stuff you would fill an authentic eclair with! You’ll need a little patience as the pastry cream has to cool, but really this recipe is straightforward and simple: The pastry cream must be completely chilled before you can use it to make your eclair cake. This typically takes a minimum of 90 minutes, but you can make the pastry cream up to 2 days in advance of assembling!
Assembling Eclair Cake
Once your pastry cream has fully chilled, you can assemble your eclair cake: For best results, you’ll want to chill this cake in the refrigerator again for several hours. This will give the graham crackers some time to soften to a cake-like consistency and will allow the filling to firm up as it sits. Enjoy!
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Let’s bake together! I’ll be walking you through all the steps in my written recipe and video below! If you try this recipe, be sure to tag me on Instagram, and you can also find me on YouTube and Facebook
