Chocolate Éclair Dessert

Not a very good picture, but I wanted to show how shiny and smooth my chocolate layer is.


Enough vegetables, let's have some dessert! I labeled this dessert as a kids recipe as well, because it's something that kids can help make, and it really is more of a kid's dessert in my opinion. Many people know this recipe from their childhoods. It's known by many names, and can be made a number of ways. Even though this is an easy recipe to make, and the ingredients are few, you have to make this a day in advance of when you plan on serving it. It should be refrigerated at least 24 hours before serving.

Chocolate Éclair Dessert

3 cups milk

2 small packages of French Vanilla instant pudding

8 oz carton of cool whip (Polysorbate 60 freaks me out, so I make my own and it works! But you have to beat it for a while-you can even search online for homemade cool whip recipes)

2 sleeves of Graham crackers

chocolate glaze (recipe follows)

• Make the pudding with the milk and cool whip
• In a 9x13 casserole dish, lay down a layer of whole graham crackers
• Spread half of the pudding/cool whip mixture over the layer of crackers
  
• Lay another layer of whole graham crackers over the pudding
• Spread the remaining half of the pudding/cool whip mix on top
  
• Lay another layer of whole graham crackers
• Spread the chocolate glaze over the top layer of graham crackers

You can use whatever chocolate glaze recipe you want as long as it spreads easily over entire top layer of graham crackers. Some people buy the small tubs of frosting and microwave it until easily spreadable. I like to make it with as few ingredients as possible from scratch.

Chocolate Glaze

3 TBLS soft (room temperature) butter

3 TBLS cocoa

1 tsp vanilla

1 ½ cup powder sugar

3 TBLS hot water (does not need to be boiling – just hot from the tap)

Mix until smooth

• IMPORTANT: Chill 24 hours – if not, at least overnight. It will not turn out as intended if not refrigerated this long.