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Dessert

Chocolate Eclairs

Chocolate eclairs are pastry shells filled with custard or whipped cream and topped with chocolate icing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 106,462 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Chocolate Eclairs

Ingredients

Directions

Make the paste

  1. Put the lard and water together with the salt in a shallow saucepan and let come to a very good boil.

  2. Stir in the sifted flour and make a good paste.

  3. Remove from the fire, put in a mixing bowl, let cool a little, and stir in the beaten eggs gradually.

Bake

  1. Dust the baking pan with flour and grease it.

  2. Drop the mixture into the pan in any desired shape, brush with egg wash, and let stand a while to smooth off before baking in a quick oven.

Fill and serve

  1. When baked, split the side or end, fill with prepared custard (or whipped cream).

  2. Replace the top and make a chocolate icing on each.

  3. Serve cold, but fresh.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

648Calories
19 gProtein
19 gFat
96 gCarbs

Counts 4 of 5 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 4 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Lard1 tbsp (12.8g)115
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Waternot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures. See the original page.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + teatop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together449 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Tea + eggtop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together821 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Beaten eggs add structure and help the paste puff as it bakes.
Lard
Fat adds tenderness and helps the paste separate into flaky layers.
Sifted flour
Flour thickens the boiled mixture into a paste that holds its shape.

The step that matters

Bring the lard and water to a very good boil before adding flour. The mixture must be fully boiling so the starch in the flour gelatinizes quickly into a smooth paste. If it is not hot enough, the paste may stay lumpy and fail to puff properly in the oven.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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