Do you dare to éclair? Éclairs used to seem like one of those unattainable pastries—something you had no choice by to pay $8 for in a fancy French patisserie in New York or Europe if you wanted to cure your craving. Why, they simply couldn’t be made at home by a cheeseburger eating American girl with no formal training! …Or so I had myself convinced for years. This is, of course, 100% ridiculous. For all the fanciness of their name—éclair means lightning, by-the-way—they really are not all that hard to make. Sure, there are three steps, but even all together, they can still be tackled in around 2 hours. The filling can even be made ahead of time. Though they had originated in France around the turn of the 19th century, the first known recipe for éclairs appears in the Boston Cooking School Cook Book by Mrs. D.A. Lincoln, published…