"real" chocolate as opposed to chocolate fondant

[Manxexile]

When I was young (40+ years ago) items like chocolate eclairs etc came topped with proper cooking or baking (dark) chocolate.

Now I can only find eclairs etc topped with some appalling sickly and sticky goo called chocolate fondant - not solid, set chocolate.

Do no supermarkets or other food outlets sell the genuine article these days?

I have only ever seen the fondant version since I was a kid, and I am mid 40”s.

Chocolate eclairs are one of the simplest 'fancy' food it's possible to make yourself.

If you make them yourself, you can have 'em however you like. Make the choux paste Rubin advance, then fill and pipe to order.

Enjoy.

My local bakeries use a real chocolate on them or some sort of chocolate anyway, it's not fondant, I've only ever seen the fondant on the coffee ones. Mind you I saw Paul Hollywood on some programme or other making them recently (old programme) and he was mixing up that chocolate fondant for them, icing sugar, cocoa and something else, can't remember. Was a bit surprised really!

What @FinallyHere said. They're basically profiteroles, but replace the chocolate sauce with melted chocolate, and chill.

Actually I see what you mean! I happened to be in Tesco and Lidl tonight and out of curiosity looked at the fresh cream eclairs in both and sure enough it's a sort of icing and not chocolate! I have never bought one in a supermarket so never noticed, I buy the occasional one in a local bakery and they are chocolate, maybe try a better bakery to see if you can get the real thing.

I think the more expensive M and S eclairs are topped with real chocolate ( the luxury ones which are insanely expensive ) they certainly taste very rich indeed

Thanks for all replies

Oh dear. I can't stand M&S food but I suppose I'll have to try them.

Waitrose do some sort of No. 1 ( 😆 ) luxury chocolate eclair and it even has this disgusting chocolate muck inside it to spoil the cream filling! Yuck!

Why on earth does the fondant slide off so readily!

Yeah. I need to search out a decent local baker or patisserie. There was an excellent one in town but they closed earlier this year.

Just to explain - I don't have a sweet tooth and generally hate cakes, pastries, milk* chocolate etc and have only recently developed a hankering for old school eclairs with real chocolate on them. So I'll have to start my search from scratch...

*proper dark chocolate is a different matter entirely... 😋

Thanks for the thought but I can't see me or my wife making our own eclairs...

And this!!! ^

Not only does it taste awful and the consistency in your mouth is disgusting, but it keeps falling off the eclair and makes a f***ing mess everywhere!

Unless it's unbelieveably cheaper than real chocolate, why use it at all?

British home store used to have a gorgeous food section..... their chocolate eclairs were heavenly!!! Proper dark chocolate and flaked almonds on top.....🤤🤤

I love a chocolate eclair but I've never seen them with a chocolate topping, just fondant. Even Betty's tearooms (very fancy Yorkshire cake shop) serve eclairs with a fondant topping.

Ah. You don't know what you've been missing.

I'm a surprised a Yorkshire tearoom can't do proper chocolate and instead uses some foreign contaminant.

Founded by a Swiss pastry chef.

My local cake shop does them with proper chocolate. She's also started making coffee renoirs and can't keep up with the demand for bakewell!

Gratuitous pic attached of my favourite

Do no supermarkets or other food outlets sell the genuine article these days?
Having had a look online it seems the genuine, authentic recipe for eclairs involves topping them with fondant. I haven't found any recipes that suggest just using chocolate, some suggested a ganache or a glaze, but a fondant topping seemed to be the norm, even from trained patisserie chefs.
No problem if you prefer a chocolate topping but I think that a fondant topping is the authentic one.

Well now in fairness topping them with straight chocolate is not a good idea either as it will just all crack and fall off on first bite, something is nearly always added to it to enable it be a little softer on biting/cutting, same as with millionaires shortbread, you have to add something to the chocolate. I make eclairs the odd time and I would always use real chocolate but usually softened a bit either with a bit of butter melted in, oil works well too or a good thick ganache is just as good. The base though is always real chocolate.

As regards the fondant falling off, that shouldn't happen at all as it's a very sticky product done correctly. Interestingly I made some coffee eclairs for a friend who loves them and couldn't buy the ones she wanted anymore, the recipe said melt fondant icing in double boiler and add coffee, I thought that's awful faffing sure why not just mix sugar/coffee/hot water and it will be basically the same thing. Well it wasn't! It stuck and tasted the same but first bite and the whole lot just cracked off! You need the other ingredients that make fondant like the liquid glucose to make it stick, similar to fondant fancies too, you can't do them with glace icing, has to be either using fondant sugar or make the real thing. So if it's falling off someone somewhere is taking a shortcut to real fondant icing.

That said I do buy the occasional eclair because while I can make them I can't make just one! If I make a dozen or so I'll eat several if not more so it's portion control 😁same applies to cream doughnuts!

I prefer set chocolate too, but I think it's just a taste preference rather than a cost thing. Some of the most expensive bakeries I know use a fondant.

My husband is a baker and they definitely use real chocolate on theirs.

I use dark chocolate because even cooking chocolate is nasty.

I knew it.

Your husband is a true gent and a proper baker.

I salute him.

Dark chocolate - definitely OK.

Cooking chocolate - I love it.

I used to eat cooking chocolate all the time when my mum was baking.

I also used to eat raw pastry and bread crusts with salt and pepper on them while hanging onto our garden gate watching the world pass by.

My mum used to say: "What will people think? There's that poor boy with nothing better to eat than raw pastry and bread crusts!"

Chocolate fondant is disgusting compared to the real thing.

I don't think I've seen the real thing for at least 20 or more years.

Fondant may now be the norm but I don't like it...