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Dessert

Chocolate Eclairs

Chocolate eclairs filled with chocolate glaze and optional jelly or whipped cream, served with a raisin and spice bread busk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Chocolate Eclairs

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the crusts

  1. Prepare the crusts using the Cream Cakes recipe, dropping the mixture about the length of a finger and not very thick.

Make the chocolate topping

  1. In a saucepan, combine brown sugar, grated chocolate, sweet milk, and butter. Boil until it sticks together, then flavor with vanilla.

  2. Pour the chocolate mixture on top of the baked crusts while hot.

Make and bake the meringue shells

  1. Beat the egg whites to a stiff froth, then gradually add powdered sugar and flavoring, continuing to beat until very stiff.

  2. Place letter paper on a hard surface and pipe the mixture into half-egg shapes, spacing them an inch apart.

  3. Bake in a slow oven (300°F/150°C) until slightly brown, then remove and hollow out the insides.

Fill and assemble

  1. Fill the shells with jelly or whipped cream and place the halves together.

  2. For the busk, mix bread dough with light brown sugar, eggs, butter, chopped raisins, and spices. Beat thoroughly and let stand in pans before baking.

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.

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. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Chocolate + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,020 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  3. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg whites
Whipped to a stiff froth, they give the meringue shells their light, airy structure.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the meringue and helps it hold its stiff, glossy structure as it is beaten.
Grated chocolate
Melts into the boiled sugar and milk mixture, giving the topping its chocolate flavor and body.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the chocolate topping, helping it set smooth.
Brown sugar
Sweetens the chocolate topping and adds a caramel-like depth of flavor.

The step that matters

Bake the meringue shells slowly. Meringue is mostly whipped egg white and sugar, so a slow oven dries and sets the shells without over-browning them. A hot oven would brown or collapse them before they are firm enough to hollow out.

“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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