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Dessert

Chocolate Eclairs

Chocolate eclairs are baked pastry filled with cream and topped with chocolate icing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Chocolate Eclairs

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the choux paste

  1. Boil water and butter together in a saucepan.

  2. When it begins to boil, slowly add flour and beat well over the heat for 5 minutes.

  3. Pour the mixture into a bowl and let it cool.

  4. Once cool, gradually add eggs while beating with your hand.

Shape and bake

  1. Spread the batter in a well-buttered pan in oblong shapes, about three times as long as wide.

  2. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until done.

Fill and ice

  1. Split each eclair.

  2. Fill each eclair with cream filling.

  3. Spread chocolate icing over the top of the eclairs.

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

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

  2. Chocolate + creamtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,466 recipes

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + chocolatetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,543 recipes

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

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
Starch that thickens the cooked paste so it can hold its shape around the eggs.
Eggs
Add structure and moisture, and their steam helps the paste puff while baking.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the paste and helps it stay tender.
Water
Turns to steam in the oven, helping the paste rise and puff.

The step that matters

Beating in the eggs. Eggs must be added gradually and the paste beaten until smooth and glossy. If the paste is too stiff or too wet, the eclairs will not rise properly or hold their shape.

“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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