Chocolate Eclair Pie
Chocolate eclair pie made from scratch with flaky pastry crust, vanilla bean custard, and creamy dark chocolate ganache.
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Ingredients
Crust
- ½ recipe All-Butter Perfect Pie Dough
- 1 egg white
Custard
- ⅓ cup granulated sugar
- ¼ cup corn starch
- ¼ tsp coarse Kosher salt (if using table salt, use half the amount)
- 2 cups whole milk
- ⅓ cup heavy whipping cream
- 4 large egg yolks
- 1 vanilla bean, seeds scraped, or 2 tsp vanilla bean paste
- 3 tbsp unsalted butter
Ganache
- 4 oz heavy whipping cream
- 4 oz semi-sweet or dark chocolate (60-70% cacao), finely chopped
Instructions
Crust
- Prepare 1/2 recipe All-Butter Perfect Pie Dough. This recipe will make a thin, flaky pastry crust.
- Once your pie dough is ready to roll out, line a baking sheet with a piece of parchment paper. Place a 9-inch round tart pan with removable bottom on the baking sheet.
- On a floured surface, roll out the dough thinly, to almost 1/8 inch thick.
- Transfer the dough to the tart pan, and fit it against the bottom and up the sides of the pan, pressing gently against the sides. You don't want to stretch or pull the dough, but allow enough slack in the dough so you can fit it snugly down into the pan.
- Use a sharp knife or scissors to trim the edge of the dough, allowing about 1/2 inch overhang. Keeping this overhang will allow for shrinkage as it bakes, and then you'll finish trimming the dough even with the top of the pan after baking the crust.
- Preheat the oven to 400 F, and freeze the crust in the pan for 20 minutes while the oven is pre-heating.
- Lightly prick the frozen crust all over with a fork. This is called "docking" the dough, and allows steam to escape to help prevent it from puffing up too much. Place a piece of parchment paper against the frozen crust. Fill the paper with dried beans or pie weights. Lay a piece of foil over the top to cover the edges of the crust. Bake the crust for 15 minutes.
- Remove the pan from the oven, scoop the beans out of the paper, then remove the paper from the crust.
- Brush the egg white over the bottom and sides of the crust. Return the pan to the oven, and bake, uncovered, for an additional 10-15 minutes, just until the crust is baked through and golden brown.
- Remove from the oven. Immediately use a sharp knife to trim the edge of the crust so it's perfectly even with the top of the pan. Let cool while you make the custard.
Custard
- In a saucepan, whisk together the sugar, corn starch and salt.
- Slowly whisk in about a cup of the milk, whisking smooth any lumps of corn starch, then whisk in the rest of the milk, cream, egg yolks and vanilla bean seeds/paste.
- Over medium heat, cook the custard while whisking constantly, until the custard starts to bubble and thicken; this should take about 8-10 minutes. Once it begins to thicken, continue to cook and whisk for 1 1/2 minutes.
- Remove the custard from the heat and stir in the butter. Pour the custard through a mesh strainer to strain out any bits of cooked egg, into a bowl. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap resting right against the surface of the custard, and refrigerate for 1 hour until no longer hot.
- Loosen up the cooled custard with a spatula, then spread into the cooled crust.
Ganache
- Pour the cream into a saucepan, and heat over medium heat just until it begins to bubble around the edges.
- Finely chop the chocolate. When the cream is hot, add 3 ounces of the chocolate to the cream, stirring with a spatula until you have a smooth ganache.
- Spread the ganache over the custard filling, then sprinkle the ganache with the remaining 1 ounce of chopped chocolate.
- Refrigerate the tart for about 2 hours, or until the filling and ganache is well chilled and set.
- Remove the sides of the pan, then cut into slices and serve.
Notes
Cover the tart loosely, and refrigerate leftovers for up to 3 days.
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