Bring water with salt, sugar and butter to a boil.
Once the butter is completely liquid, bring heat to minimum and add the flour.
Stir thoroughly until the dough doesn’t stick to the pot anymore. It should look slightly silky.
Put aside and let cool for a few minutes. Then add the first egg to the still warm dough. Mix it in (best with a mixer, by hand will be hard work). Once the dough absorbed the egg you can add the remaining ones – one by one!
Once that is done preheat your oven to 220°C.
Place baking paper on a baking pan.
Put the dough in a pastry tube and make your eclairs. They should be abour 6 cm long.
Bake in the oven for 8 minutes, then reduce heat to 180°C and bake for another 12 minutes.
Once they are done, let them cool down.
Chestnut Cream
Chop chestnuts and put them in a pot with the milk, 1 tbsp sugar and bring to a boil.
Let it simmer with a lid on the pot for around 10 minutes. Then you need to let it cool down.
Optional: If you want to add the saffron gin, now is the time
Blend the chestnut mix thoroughly. Make sure there are NO chunks in the mixture anymore (I messed up exactly this step).
Whip the cream with the remaining sugar.
Gently fold in the whipped cream into the chestnut mix.
Place in the fridge for at least one hour, two are better (I messed up this part too, there are no shortcuts in this recipe).
Eclair with chestnut cream
Now you can use the pastry tube again if you like. Use a syringe-like top, add the cream and fill the eclairs.
OR
Cut the eclair in half and use a star-like top, add the cream and place the cream on top of the bottom part. Put top part on cream.
If you do the menu, you can prepare until here and place it in the fridge. You could do this in the morning already. Otherwise: Enjoy!