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Dessert

Eclairs a 'LA Creme

A pastry made of a dough baked into finger shapes, filled with a sweet cream, and optionally frosted.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Eclairs a 'LA Creme

Ingredients

Directions

Make the choux pastry

  1. In a saucepan, bring the water and butter to a boil.

  2. Stir in the sifted flour until it leaves the sides of the pan.

  3. Remove from heat and add the eggs one at a time, mixing well.

  4. Transfer the batter to a piping bag.

  5. Pipe the batter into finger shapes on a greased baking sheet.

  6. Bake the eclairs until golden.

  7. Cool the eclairs completely.

Make the cream

  1. For the cream, combine milk, sugar, egg yolks, butter, corn starch, and vanilla in a saucepan.

  2. Cook the cream over medium heat, stirring constantly until thickened.

Fill and finish

  1. Fill the cooled eclairs with the cream.

  2. Frost the filled eclairs with chocolate if desired.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Corn + vanillatop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,943 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Flour
Forms the structure of the choux batter once it is cooked and dried in the oven.
Eggs
Add structure and help the batter puff and set as it bakes.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness to the choux pastry and the cream.
Egg yolks
Thicken the cream as it cooks and add richness to its texture.
Corn starch
Thickens the cream by swelling in heat and binding the liquid.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the cream that sets as it thickens.

The step that matters

Cook the cream while stirring constantly. Egg yolks can scramble if the cream overheats or stops being stirred. Constant stirring spreads heat evenly, letting the starch thicken the cream smoothly before the yolks curdle.

“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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