Eclairs (or not)

Miyoko's eclair recipe from this month's VegNews!
I was waiting in a line at the grocery store that I work for when I first saw the cover of this month's VegNews. There's a beautiful crepe cake. I thought about how badly I wanted to be eating a slice of that instead of the salad I was buying. But then it caught my eye, "classic French food veganized" & "custard filled eclairs". I sat down with that magazine and don't have a faint idea of what the salad was like. I read all of the recipes multiple times daydreaming about those eclairs.
I put them on the schedule for the month with my heart full of hope. But it didn't quite work out as planned. While Miyoko's recipe sounds perfect, I think my trouble came with the flax egg whites. After boiling them for the minimum amount of time they were practically un-strainable and impossible to accurately measure since it was almost a solid instead of a gel. I proceeded ahead anyways hoping for the best, but knowing that it probably wouldn't work. My eclairs tasted great. But they never rose and stayed quite doughy and instead of staying the shape I piped them sort of spread out into fat ovals. I tried to bake them for longer just to see if I could save it, so they turned into cookies. Which I still sandwiched together with pastry cream & dipped in chocolate, because why not?! It was almost like I intentionally made milano cookies.
I will definitely be giving this recipe another chance. And I did enjoy her pastry cream recipe, so you should at the very least try making that. I haven't made the crepe cake that initially reeled me in to the cover, but I am sure it is only a matter of time!