Chocolate eclairs are my favourite pastry and luckily for me, they are generally less sugary than other sweet treats, which is good news for my blood sugars.

This recipe calls for a sweetener, rather than sugar. I can recommend xylitol as the best tasting sweetener; however it is incredibly toxic to dogs, so please bear that in mind if  you have a dog. I don’t keep it in the house since we got our dog, as I don’t want to risk it. A good alternative is splenda. I do not enjoy the taste of natural sweeteners like stevia, so never use them. 

This recipe, as well as being low sugar, is also low calorie and I’m happy to report that they also taste great. If you’re not watching the calories, I would recommend using unsweetened whipped cream to fill these, rather than canned cream, which is basically just flavoured air. 

I doubled the amount of chocolate in the recipe, which is only supposed to be lightly drizzled over, but I need a big splodge of chocolate on my eclairs. 

• 2 tbsp granulated sweetener
• 2 tsp salt
• 100 g reduced-fat spread
• 150 ml 5fl oz cold water
• 100 g self-raising flour
• 2 large free-range eggs
• 50 g dark chocolate chips
• 10 tbsp reduced-fat aerosol cream

1. Preheat the oven to 190°C/Gas Mark 5 and line a baking tray with baking parchment.
2. Put the granulated sweetener, salt, reduced-fat spread and water in a saucepan and bring to the boil. As soon as the mixture reaches the boil, take the pan off the heat and gradually beat in the flour. The mixture will look lumpy at first, but persevere. Continue to beat until the mixture forms a ball of dough and comes away from the sides of the saucepan.
3. Add the eggs to the mixture and beat well to incorporate. It will look like the mixture has split at first, but continue to beat until it becomes glossy.
4. Spoon the mixture into a piping bag fitted with a large nozzle. Pipe the eclairs onto the lined baking tray (they’l| be around 12cm (5in) long each). Dab any ‘tails’ down with a wet finger and bake in the oven for 1 hour. DO NOT OPEN THE OVEN! Not even for a sneaky peek-they’ll likely collapse and you’ll end up with pancakes!
5. Once the time is up, remove the eclairs from the oven and leave to cool on a wire rack. Only fill them when you are ready to serve -aerosol cream doesn’t keep its shape very long once Squirted! (You can freeze them at this point, prior to filling.)
6. Once completely cool, cut lengthways through three-quarters of each eclair. Melt the chocolate chips in a bowl in the microwave. Squirt 1 tablespoon of reduced-fat aerosol cream into each split éclair, then drizzle/splodge the melted chocolate over the tops. Serve immediately.