America's Test Kitchen's Chocolate Eclair Cake
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Very big. Press crackers down so no air pockets.
Serves 15
Ingredients
- 1 1/4 cups sugar
- 6 tablespoons cornstarch
- 1 teaspoon table salt
- 5 cups whole milk
- 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into 4 pieces
- 5 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1 1/4 teaspoons unflavored gelatin
- 2 tablespoons water
- 2 3/4 cups heavy cream, chilled, divided
- 23 graham crackers
- 1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
- 5 tablespoons light corn syrup
Directions
Combine sugar, cornstarch and salt in large saucepan. Whisk milk into sugar mixture until smooth and bring to boil over medium-high heat, scraping bottom of pan with rubber spatula. Immediately reduce heat to medium-low and cook, continuing to scrape bottom, until thickened and large bubbles appear on surface, 4 to 6 minutes. Off heat, whisk in butter and vanilla. Transfer pudding to large bowl and place parchment directly on surface of pudding. Refrigerate until cool, about 2 hours.
Sprinkle gelatin over water in bowl and let sit until gelatin softens, about 5 minutes. Microwave until mixture is bubbling around edges and gelatin dissolves, about 10 seconds.
Using stand mixer fitted with whisk attachment, whip 2 cups cream on medium-low speed until foamy, about 1 minute. Increase speed to high and whip until soft peaks form, 1 to 3 minutes. Add gelatin mixture and whip until stiff peaks form, about 1 minute.
Whisk one-third of whipped cream into chilled pudding until smooth. Fold remaining whipped cream into chilled pudding until only a few white streaks remain. Cover bottom of 13-by-9-inch baking dish with a layer of graham crackers, breaking crackers as necessary to line bot- tom of pan. Top with half of pudding-whipped cream mixture (about 5 1/2 cups) and another layer of graham crackers. Repeat with remaining pudding-whipped cream mixture and remaining graham crackers.
Combine chocolate chips, corn syrup and remaining 3/4 cup cream in bowl and microwave on 50% power, stirring occasionally, until smooth, 1 to 2 minutes. Let glaze cool completely, about 10 minutes. Spread glaze evenly over graham crackers and refrigerate cake for at least 6 hours or up to 2 days before serving.
From “The Complete Summer Cookbook: Beat the Heat with 500 Recipes That Make the Most of Summer’s Bounty” (America’s Test Kitchen, $33)