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Dessert

Petits Choux Garnis

Petits Choux Garnis are small choux pastries filled with sweetmeat.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Petits Choux Garnis

Oven, in the book's wordsA gentle oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a gentle oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the choux paste

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter with the milk, sugar, and lemon peel over medium heat.

  2. Once it boils, remove from heat and quickly stir in the flour until it forms a paste.

  3. Return to heat and stir for 2 minutes.

  4. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

  5. Stir in the salt and ratafia biscuits, then beat for 2 minutes.

Bake and fill

  1. Drop spoonfuls onto a baking sheet and bake in a gentle oven at 300°F (150°C) until golden.

  2. Once baked, cut each choux open and fill with your choice of sweetmeat.

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. Flour + biscuittop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together889 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Lemon + biscuittop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together697 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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
Forms the starch paste that gives the choux its structure once baked.
Eggs
Add structure and lift, and help the paste puff as it bakes.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness to the paste.
Milk
Provides the liquid that cooks with the flour and butter into the paste.
Ratafia biscuits
Add almond aroma and a finely crumbed flavour to the paste.

The step that matters

Drying the paste after adding the flour. Stirring the flour into the boiling liquid and then cooking it for 2 minutes gelatinises the starch and drives off moisture. A dry, cohesive paste holds its shape and puffs properly, while a wet one spreads and stays flat.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, milk, sugar, flour, egg, biscuit):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, milk, sugar, flour, egg, biscuit. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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