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Dessert

Chocolate Eclairs

Chocolate eclairs are pastry shells filled with custard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Chocolate Eclairs

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a bowl, mix melted butter, sugar, eggs, and milk until well combined.

  3. In another bowl, sift together flour, corn starch, cream of tartar, and baking soda.

  4. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, stirring until smooth.

  5. Pour the batter into thin pans of desired shape.

Bake and make the filling

  1. Bake in the preheated oven until golden.

  2. For the cream filling, combine milk, egg yolks, egg white, powdered sugar, corn starch, and flavoring in a saucepan.

  3. Cook over low heat until thickened, stirring constantly.

  4. Fill the baked eclairs with the cream filling.

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

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

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

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

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Milk + coffeetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,202 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

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

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the batter's shape while it bakes.
Eggs
Bind the batter and set during baking, giving structure and richness.
Melted butter
Adds fat for tenderness and a rich flavour in the batter.
Egg yolks
Thicken the cream filling as it heats and add richness.
Corn starch
Thickens the cream filling as it cooks with the milk.

The step that matters

Cooking the cream filling. Cook over low heat while stirring constantly. Egg yolks can curdle or scramble if overheated, and the starch needs heat to thicken the filling smoothly.

“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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