Instructions

For the choux pastry

• Preheat the oven to 190c/gas mark 5. Grease 2 non stick baking trays or line with a silicone liner.
• Sieve the flour into a bowl. In a separate bowl gently whisk the eggs to combine and set aside.
• Place the water, butter and salt in a saucepan and bring to the boil over a medium heat.
• Once the water/butter mixture has come to the boil tip the flour in and whisk. Continue to whisk the mixture over the heat until it starts to clump together. Remove your whisk.
• Using a wooden spoon a beat the mixture over a medium heat for 2 to 3 minutes until it comes away from the side of the pan and turns glossy.
• Take the pan off the heat. Add the eggs a little at a time beating them in thoroughly before you add the next bit. You want the mixture to be thick and glossy and pipeable. Check the texture of the mixture before you leave the last bit of egg as you may not need to use it. You don't want this mixture to be too runny to pipe.
• Fit a piping bag with a plain 1 cm nozzle and fill with the mixture. Pipe 8cm lines of the mixture onto the pre prepared trays. You should be able to make 20 - 24 eclairs with this amount of mixture. If you want to make fewer bigger eclairs you obviously can but you will need to adjust the cooking time.
• Bake in the preheated oven for 12 - 15 minutes until they have puffed up and become golden brown and are firm to the touch. Turn off the oven, open the oven door and leave the eclairs in there for another 10 - 15 to dry out some more. Some people suggest taking the eclairs out of the oven and piercing them to let any steam but I have found that by leaving them in the oven to dry out makes lovely firm eclairs with hollow insides that are ideal for filling.
• Remove from the oven and leave to completely cool before filling.

For the glaze

• Place the maple sugar and corn starch into a grinder and grind until you have a fine powder. Place into a small bowl and add the milk drop by drop until you have a consistency that you are happy with. The glaze needs to be wet enough to spread but thick enough that it doesn't all drip off the top of your eclairs. If you want a thicker more glace icing topping to your eclairs you will need to double or even triple the glaze ingredients above. As maple sugar is so sweet (& expensive) I wanted a thinner glaze.

For filling & decorating

• Whisk the cream until thick. Place the cream in a piping bag with a 1 cm nozzle. Slice the eclairs horizontally (not quite all the way through) and pipe the cream into the middle.
• Spread the maple glaze on the top of the eclairs and decorate with chopped pecans.