How to make
Boil water and milk in a pot, and then add the butter. Once melted, pour the flour and stir vigorously until they form a nice ball of dough. Let it cook until it comes off the walls. Remove and then once the dough is cool, add the eggs one by one, beating well after each.
You can use a pastry bag to form the eclairs, or simply pour them with a spoon into a tray, covered with baking paper. Bake them for 20 minutes at 410°F (210 °C).
For the cream, boil the milk in a container on the stove and add the scraped vanilla pod. Beat the egg yolks with the sugar, then add the flour and mix. Pour the warm milk into this mixture (without the pod), beat and return the entire mixture to the pot you used for the milk.
Put this on the stove and stir until thickened - a few minutes. Add the cognac. You have to leave the cream to cool completely and tighten (covered in transparent foil).
Whip the liquid cream with a little sugar, and if it seems like it's too much, do not use the whole package. Put the pre-swollen gelatin to melt in a water bath.
To the cooled and stirred cream, add the gelatin and then mix it with the liquid cream carefully. Fill the eclairs with the cream from the bottom side. From the sugar and 2/5 cup of water, make the caramel. Mix them in a pot and leave on the heat without stirring until it begins to caramelize on its own.
Leave on the stove until you get a nice caramel sauce and finally scrape off the caramel from the walls and mix. For an even better flavor you can add the remaining cream and stir until mixed. Dip each éclair in the caramel sauce or just pour it over them.
The number of eclairs depends on how big you made them. The original recipe uses caramelized sugar only, in which they are dipped and left to harden.
