Meringue lemon éclairs (choux pastry)

When a lemon tart meets choux pastry, you get ... mini eclairs filled with a lemon cream, a lemon confit and topped with an Italian meringue. In short, nothing very complicated, but a bit of organization is still necessary to make these small lemony desserts, you can prepare the cream and the confit the day before, and make the choux pastry, cooking, assembly and the Italian meringue on the D-day. To your lemons ! 



Prep time : 1h15 + 30 minutes ccoking
For 20 to 25 mini éclairs depending on their size :

Choux pastry :

75g water
75g milk
A pinch of salt
A pinch of sugar
3g honey
60g butter
90g flour T55
150g eggs

Put the water, milk, butter, salt, sugar and honey in a saucepan.



Bring the mixture to the boil. Remove from the heat, add the flour, mix well to avoid lumps, then return to medium heat.



Stir constantly to dry out the dough until a thin film covers the bottom of the pan and the dough comes away from the sides of the pan.



Pour the dough into the food processor bowl and mix at medium speed so that the steam escapes. Then gradually add the eggs until the choux pastry is smooth and satiny.




Put the choux pastry in a piping bag fitted with a star or petit four tip. Pipe small éclairs about 7 to 8cm long.



To have pretty éclairs, I sprinkle my raw éclairs with a 50/50 mixture of powdered sugar and cocoa butter powder; if you don't have cocoa butter, you can sprinkle them with powdered sugar only, they will be more golden at the end of the cooking.



Bake in the preheated oven at 180°C, static heat, for approx. 30 minutes, then allow to cool down.

Lemon cream :

130g milk
135g liquid cream
140g lemon juice
3 eggs
75g sugar
45g cornstarch
45g butter

Heat the milk, liquid cream and lemon juice.
Whisk the eggs with the sugar and cornstarch.



Pour half of the hot liquid over the eggs, whisking well.



Pour into saucepan and thicken over medium heat, stirring constantly.




When the cream is thickened, add out of the heat the butter cut in small pieces.



Mix well, when the cream is homogeneous, put the cream in a plate, put a plastic wrap on it and put it in the refrigerator.

Lemon confit :

120g lemon juice
2g pectin NH
4g sugar

Heat the lemon juice.
Mix the sugar and pectin, then pour the mixture over the lemon juice while whisking. Bring to the boil and cook for a few minutes over medium heat.



Pour into a bowl and set aside in the refrigerator.

Assembly :

When the cream and the confit have cooled, drill two small holes under each éclair.



Mix the cream, and put it in a piping bag with a small tip.



Pour the confit into another piping bag without tip, which you will cut so as to have a very small opening.



Pipe a little bit of cream in each hole, then some confit, and finish with the cream. Reserve the éclairs in the refrigerator while you prepare the meringue.

Italian meringue :

50g egg whites
100g sugar
32g water

Put water and sugar in a saucepan. Heat the syrup. When it reaches 110°C, start whipping the egg whites gently. When the syrup reaches 121°C, pour it over the foamy (not firm) egg whites and whisk at high speed until the meringue is cooled, smooth and shiny.



Smooth the surface of the meringue, then dip the élciars into it (re-smoothing the surface of the meringue each time if necessary, to get a homogeneous glaze).




Use a blowtorch to brown the meringue if you wish, then enjoy !