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Strawberry Creams
1 cup hot water ½ teaspoon salt ½ cup butter 1½ cups Five Roses flour 5 eggs Put hot water, salt and butter into a basin, and when boiling work in the flour until smooth. Let cool, and beat in one at a time 5 eggs. Spread into finger forms on tins, and bake in quick oven until light as a feather. Let cool, and cut open tops so as to fill with sweetened whipped cream and strawberries. 1 egg
This is choux paste — the same batter as éclairs and cream puffs — under a name that describes the finished dessert rather than the method. The original assumes you already know how choux behaves, so a few of the critical steps are compressed almost to nothing.
- The hinge: dry the pasteAfter the flour goes into the boiling water and butter, keep stirring over heat until the dough forms a smooth ball that pulls away from the pan and leaves a thin film on the bottom, about two minutes. Paste that is still wet will never rise into a hollow shell.
- "Let cool" means lukewarm, not coldCool the paste only until it is warm rather than hot to the touch before adding the eggs. Paste that is still hot will scramble them; a thoroughly cold paste takes them up less readily.
- Five eggs may be too manyEggs today are graded to standard sizes and may run larger than the recipe assumed. Beat in four, then judge: the paste should fall from the spoon in a thick ribbon and a piped line should hold its shape with softened edges. Add the fifth in portions only if needed.
- The stray "1 egg"The lone egg listed after the method has no counterpart in the instructions. It may be an egg wash for brushing the fingers before baking, or simply a stray from the neighbouring recipe; either way it is not part of the paste.
- "Quick oven"Roughly 400–425F. A common approach is to start hot for 12–15 minutes to get the lift, then drop to about 350F for another 15–20 minutes to set the walls. Do not open the door during the first stage.
- Basin and finger formsThe "basin" here is simply the saucepan. Pipe or spoon fingers about 4 inches long and an inch wide, well apart on a lined sheet.
- Vent before fillingPierce or split each shell as soon as it leaves the oven and let the steam escape on a rack, or the interiors turn soggy. Fill only shortly before serving; whipped cream and cut strawberries will soften the pastry within an hour.
- YieldAbout 18 fingers, enough for eight or nine servings. Sweeten the cream lightly — a tablespoon of sugar per cup — since the berries carry most of the sweetness.
The Five Roses Cook Book was published by the Lake of the Woods Milling Company of Montreal and distributed to Canadian households who bought its flour; like most milling-company books it exists to demonstrate that the brand can handle everything from bread to fine pastry. Choux paste — French pâte à choux, the name traditionally explained by the resemblance of the baked puffs to small cabbages — is the flour-and-egg batter behind éclairs, cream puffs and profiteroles, and its appearance in a promotional flour book signals ambition: it is one of the few pastries whose rise depends entirely on steam and egg rather than a leavening agent, so it flatters a strong, consistent flour. The recipe is called "Strawberry Creams," and never uses the word éclair at all.