Lazy Lady Eclairs

I don't' know where I found it. Pinterest, one of the many blog hops I follow. I don't know.

The point is, someone posted a recipe for "Easy Eclairs". 
Hold the phone. I LOVE eclairs and I can make them at home easy? - Yes!.

I gave the recipe a try & half way into the darn thing I stopped.

Easy my @&%fillintheblank!
She wanted you to make the dough from scratch, make the chocolate icing from scratch, and whip the cream. The ONLY thing "easy" about it was she used boxed instant pudding in the recipe. WHAT?
Grrr.... 
I milled it over for a little bit and thought - I can make this easy! WATCH ME!


I tried 3 different styles of doing the pastry.

Fail # 1 - letting it puff and doing the traditional fill and top with icing - I did not like biting into it and the filling going everywhere but in my mouth.

# 2 - placing the dough on inverted muffin tin to make little cups - although this was a cool idea, it still was somewhat messy eating and it was more time consuming.

#3 - flat squares - WIN - makes it FAST to prepare and EASY to eat.

These are not traditional eclairs for you "food snobs" out there. BUT, they are yummy, easy, quick and will give you an eclair "fix".

Time to make: 15-30 minutes.
Makes 24 3inch squares

 

 

ingredients (imagine the milk there too)

Ingredients:

1 package of vanilla instant pudding mix (the big 5 oz box)
2 cups cold milk
1 container frozen creamy whipped topping (8oz)
1 container chocolate icing (1lb.)
1 box puff pastry (2 sheets)- thawed

Method:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
While Oven is heating, mix the pudding mix with milk and put in fridge. Take out the frozen topping and place it on the counter to get it warmed up.
Cut each sheet into 3rds along the fold and then cut each 3rd into 4ths (see photo) to make12 sections.

cut into 12 squares

Place the sections evenly spaced onto a cookie sheet (stretch the sections if you want to make even looking squares but that would just be more work).
Bake the pastry till puffed and almost lightly golden (this took my oven about 8 minutes).

puffed & starting to get golden

Immediately use a spatula and flatten the puffs. You don't have to go all ninja on them - just a light firm squish to flatten the tops (see the pic of the finished product to get and idea). Here is where if you want them a little more crispy - you can put them back in the oven for about 1-3 minutes after you smoosh them to give them a bit more toasty crispiness.


While those are cooling off a bit, mix the pudding and about 2/3-3/4 of the container of whipped cream topping.

Smear about a tablespoon full of frosting on the top of each pastry.
Top with about a tablespoon of pudding mixture.

Yum!

You can adjust the level of chocolate to cream ratio according to your taste.

If you want the cream thicker, reduce the milk. 

Yeah... you may have leftover cream and frosting but you will find something to use it for ;-)

There you have it!
5 ingredients
EASY!

Cut those squares in half for a quick easy party nom!