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 ↓
Eclairs Au Cafe
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 dough
In a saucepan, melt the butter with boiling water over medium heat.
Once boiling, add the flour and stir with a wooden spoon for 3 minutes until it forms a stiff dough.
Remove from heat and add the eggs one at a time, stirring thoroughly after each addition.
Grease an eclair pan and fill it with the dough.
Bake and fill
Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for about 15 minutes, watching carefully to prevent burning.
When done, make a small incision in the side of each eclair and fill with sweetened whipped cream flavored with coffee.
Make and apply the icing
For the icing, boil sugar and strong coffee in a saucepan until it forms a thread when dropped from a spoon.
Remove from heat and stir until it thickens slightly, then coat each eclair with the icing.
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.
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Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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
- Forms the starch structure that holds the stiff dough and sets the eclair shell.
- Eggs
- Add structure and leavening, puffing the dough as steam forms during baking.
- Butter
- Adds fat and richness, tenderising the dough and helping it brown.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the icing and helps it thicken into a glossy coating as it cooks.
- Very strong coffee
- Flavours the icing and the cream filling with a bitter, aromatic note.
The step that matters
Baking the shell. Bake until the shell is dry and firm. Underbaked choux collapses as it cools because the starch and egg structure has not set, while overbaking or burning darkens the shell and makes it bitter.
“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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