Vanilla eclairs with vanilla pastry cream and fondant

Mix the sugar and starch together dry, then add the yolks and stir slowly; the sugar dilutes the starch's thickening power so it does not lump.

Heat the milk with half a vanilla pod, seeds and pod, so the fat absorbs the vanilla aroma, to the boil.

Put the yolk, sugar and starch mixture straight into the boiling milk so it thickens at once; take on and off the heat while stirring, as needed.

Bring back to the boil and boil about two minutes so the starch is cooked; remove from the heat.

Take out the vanilla pod (it can be washed, dried and reused) and cool the cream in a bowl chilled in the freezer.

At 40 degrees, a little above body temperature, add the butter in parts; butter added to hot cream melts and turns greasy.

Blend with an immersion blender until perfectly smooth.

Spread thin and flat, cover with film in contact so no condensation forms, and refrigerate for a day.

For the choux, put milk and water in a pan with salt and sugar and the butter; the butter must melt before the liquid boils.

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees, or the maximum your oven allows.

When the liquid boils well, take off the heat, sift in the flour and stir until smooth.

Dry the dough over the heat with light stirring for about 2 minutes, until steam comes off and a light crust forms.

Transfer and cool to 50 to 60 degrees; add the pre-mixed eggs in a thin stream, a little at a time, until the dough flows enough; do not add all the egg by weight.

Fill a piping bag only partly, remove air, and pipe even lines of mini and large eclairs onto the lightly oiled teflon surface with a closed-tulip toothed tip.

Put the eclairs into the 300 degree oven and switch the oven off completely, so there is no convection; wait 20 minutes.

Turn on to 170, then bake 12 minutes at 160, to a dark brown, never light brown.

Cool on a rack so the steam does not wet the bottoms.

Make a hole at each end with a filling tip and break any small partitions inside.

Whip the rested cold cream in the mixer with the whisk until airy, and fill the eclairs from one side.

Warm the fondant to no more than 40 degrees, or it turns matte; loosen with a little warm syrup to a flowing wave, not so much that it cracks.

Coat the eclairs with the fondant, covering the filling holes.