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Dessert

Petit Choux

A small choux pastry made with flour, butter, sugar, eggs, and water, baked and filled with preserves or whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Petit Choux

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.

Make the dough

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

  2. Once boiling, stir in the flour and sugar, cooking until the mixture pulls away from the sides of the pan.

  3. Remove from heat and beat in the eggs until fully incorporated.

Pipe and bake

  1. Using a piping bag, pipe the mixture onto a greased baking sheet.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for about 1 hour.

Fill and finish

  1. When done, open the sides of the cakes and fill with preserves or whipped cream.

  2. Coat with glaze icing.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Flour and butter 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 gelatinises when cooked, giving the paste enough structure to hold its shape and puff.
Eggs
Add moisture and proteins that set during baking, helping the pastry rise and stay hollow.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender texture in the cooked paste.
Water
Turns to steam in the oven, pushing the paste up and helping it puff.
Castor sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the outside brown during baking.

The step that matters

Cooking the flour into the boiling butter and water. The paste must be cooked until it pulls away from the pan. This gelatinises the starch and drives off excess moisture, so the dough can hold its shape and puff in the oven instead of spreading or collapsing.

“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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