Homemade éclairs are honestly one of the most delicious crowd pleasers I know.
Preheat the oven to 220C and line a baking tray with paper.
For the choux pastry, sift the flour and salt together and have ready before you start.
Combine the butter and water in a heavy-based saucepan and bring to the boil.
Add the flour mixture and stir, briskly, with a wooden spoon for three minutes. The mixture should come together into a smooth yellow paste.
Basically, here you want it to ‘dry up’ nicely, so cook over a medium-high heat, stirring all the time until it forms a ball and comes cleanly away from the sides of the saucepan. Transfer this mixture into the bowl of your electric mixer.
Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well between each addition.
Spoon this into a piping bag (use a 1cm nozzle) or plastic snap-lock bag with the end snipped off.
Pipe one line, about 8cm long, then another right next to it (touching with no gaps at all between each line) and another line on top, straddling both lines (I just do a down, up and over thing with my piping bag – all in one motion).
Repeat, leaving about 4cm between each eclair (they’ll puff up quite a lot) and put the tray in the oven as soon as possible.
After 15 minutes in the hot oven, open the door and wedge a wooden spoon into the opening and cook for a further 10 minutes. This will help let out steam inside the pastries.
Once they are nice and brown, remove from oven and set aside to cool.
For the filling, whisk the cream icing sugar and vanilla until soft peaks form.
Fold in the raspberries so they break up a little and colour the cream pale pink.
Then melt the chocolate in a bowl over a saucepan of simmering water until completely smooth.
Cut the cool eclairs carefully in half length ways.
Spoon the melted chocolate over the eclair tops and fill the hollow bottoms with a few spoonful’s of cream.
Sandwich together and serve.