[1] Decorated éclairs by Master Pastry Chef Michel Richard at Pomme Palais in New York Palace Hotel.

[2] Éclairs decorated by pastry great Johnny Iuzzini for Le Meridien hotels.

[3] Simple and elegant decoration with pecans. Or, get festive with a mixture of nuts, including pistachios and macadamias (photo © Dilyara Garifullina | Unsplash).

[4] Just about any decoration for cupcakes will work on éclairs. These are from Amazon.

[5] The Dsmile decorating pen makes it easy to decorate with designs or writing.

Updated June 2026

Éclairs are a special-occasion pastry. A tempting custard-filled choux pastry shell topped with a chocolate (or other) glaze, only sugar-avoiders would turn down the opportunity to have one.

Yet, the elongated pastry with the shiny chocolate, caramel, or vanilla glaze can be even more exciting. Just look at the photos, to see what great pastry chefs do with them.

While it takes some skill to make attractive éclairs from scratch, its pretty easy to decorate ones you purchase.

You’ll find the ready-to-buy éclairs with classic chocolate and caramel toppings at a good bakery.

But at a sophisticated bakery, you may also find a rainbow of colors and flavors: coffee, currant (pink), dulce de leche, lemon, mango, matcha, pistachio, raspberry, and probably these days, ube (purple).

One of our favorite parties ever was a DIY éclair design tea party for a friend’s birthday. Both men and women came to Sunday tea, and all have been clamoring for an encore.

June 22nd is National Éclair Day, and National Pastry Day is December 9th, the latter and opportunity to decorate Christmas éclairs.

Not to mention Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day.

Anytime you host it, your éclair party will be memorable.

If it’s a celebration party (baby, birthday, promotion, whatever), you can give the celebrant the gift of a cake decorating pen (photo #5, under $10), which makes it easy to write and decorate with icing, and to affix decorations.

Below:

> What you need to decorate your éclairs.

> The history of the éclair.

Elsewhere on The Nibble:

> The history of pastry.

> The history of dessert.

> The different types of pies and pastries: a photo glossary.

> The year’s 15+ pastry holidays.

> The year’s 30+ pie and cobbler holidays.

> The year’s dessert holidays, January-July (more than 100!)

> The year’s dessert holidays, August-December (more than 80!)
 
 
DECORATING INGREDIENTS FOR THE ECLAIRS

Whether you buy the eclairs or make your own, here’s what you need.

DECORATIONS

For specialty items, check out sources like Amazon (search for cupcake decorations) plus professional sites like Bakell, Pastry Chef’s Boutique, and The Sugar Art.

For your consideration:

 
More sweet ingredients:

 
Savory ingredients:

 
FIXATIVES

Since the glaze (shiny icing) on top of the éclair will be set, you need a bit of something to adhere the decorations, plus utensils or squeeze bottles to dab them on.

An elongated, finger-shaped pastry made of pâte à choux (puff pastry), filled with whipped cream or custard and topped with a glacé icing (glaze), the éclair originated in France around the turn of the 19th century.

Éclair is the French word for lightning. Food historians believe that the pastry received its name because it glistens when coated with the glaze. We might suggest that it is because they are so popular that they disappear as quickly as lightning.

The Oxford English Dictionary traces the word “éclair” in the English language to the second half of the 19th century: 1861. In the U.S., the first printed recipe for éclairs appears even later, in the 1884 edition of the Boston Cooking-School Cook Book, edited by Mrs. D.A. Lincoln (later editions were under the auspices of Fanny Farmer).
 
Created By The First “Celebrity Chef,” Marie-Antoine Carême

Many food historians believe that éclairs were first made by Marie-Antoine Carême (1874-1833).

This brilliant man, cast out to make his own way at the age of 10 by his impoverished family, became the first “celebrity chef,” working for luminaries: Charles, Prince Talleyrand, the French ambassador to Britain; the future George IV of England; Emperor Alexander I of Russia and Baron James de Rothschild.

The elite clamored for invitations to dinners cooked by Carême.

He is considered to be the founder and architect of French haute cuisine; an innovator of cuisine, both visually (he studied architectural to create amazing presentations) and functionally (modern mayonnaise, for example). He also was an enormously popular cookbook author—an big achievement for a boy who had no education, yet taught himself to read and write.

We can only dream…and live vicariously by reading his biography.

Carême began his career as a pâtissier (pastry chef), and created:

 
On the savory side he created:

 
While most people know Georges Auguste Escoffier and have never heard of Marie-Antoine Carême, his early documentation of culinary sauces, his structural, artistic approach revolutionized both the savory and sweet sides of the kitchen. Escoffier was born more than a decade after Carême passed away.
 
Both were gigantic contributors to French cuisine:

 

[7] Chef Carême making éclairs (illustration: The Nibble | Abacus).
 
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*Escoffier reclassified Allemande as a secondary sauce and added Tomate and Hollandaise to established the five Mother Sauces used by chefs today.
 

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