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Cream Puffs
1 cup boiling water 1/2 cup butter or shortening 1 cup flour 4 eggs Add the boiling water to the butter or shortening, bring to a boil and stir in the flour thoroughly. Remove from the fire, let the mixture cool slightly and add the eggs one at a time, beating in each one for some time before adding the next. Drop by spoonfuls on a greased pan about two inches apart, shaping into a circular form and having the batter a little higher in the center. Bake one-half hour in a moderate oven (360 degrees F.). If these cakes are removed from the oven before they are thoroughly done, they will fall. Take out one; if it does not fall, the others may be removed.
Cool and split partly with a sharp knife. Fill with a cream filling, whipped cream, or a fruit mixture.
Cream puffs and eclairs make an excellent foundation for a great variety of desserts. Split them open, fill with any kind of ice-cream, and cover with any sauce or combination of sauces. Replace cover, and serve immediately.
This is standard pâte à choux, written before stand mixers made the egg-beating easy. The recipe is sound as given; the details below cover the vaguest steps and the one place puffs usually fail.
- Oven temperatureThe recipe specifies 360F, which works, though many modern bakers start hotter to force the steam expansion: 425F for the first 15 minutes, then down to 350F to dry the shells. If you follow the original at a steady 360F, treat the half-hour as the minimum rather than the maximum.
- Dry the pasteAfter the flour goes in, keep stirring over the heat a minute or two until the dough forms a smooth ball and leaves a film on the pan bottom. Driving off that extra water is what lets the puffs rise hollow.
- Cool before the eggs"Cool slightly" means warm but no longer hot enough to scramble egg. Add the eggs one at a time and beat until the paste is glossy and falls from the spoon in a thick ribbon.
- Egg sizeThe recipe gives no egg size, and period eggs were not standardised as today's are. Judge by consistency rather than count: if the paste is already glossy and ribboning, add the last egg in two parts.
- Do not open the ovenThe instruction to test one puff is the important line in the recipe. Leave the door shut for the first 20 minutes, then remove a single shell and let it stand a minute; if the sides hold, the rest are done.
- Split while warmCutting a small slit in each shell as it comes from the oven lets steam escape and keeps the interiors from going soggy. Fill only once completely cool, and shortly before serving.
- YieldAbout 12 puffs at this size, or roughly 24 smaller ones. The paste also pipes into eclairs, which should be baked until the shells are dry and firm and checked the same way.
The paste here is choux, the cooked flour-and-egg dough long used in French kitchens for puffs, eclairs and gougeres; the name is traditionally explained by the cabbage-like look of the baked rounds. By the 1920s it had naturalized in American home cooking, which is why the technique can be set down here with no explanation at all. The closing suggestion of ice cream and sauce reflects the period's enthusiasm for assembled desserts built from a plain base: one batch of shells, a shelf of fillings, and a hostess could produce a different dessert each time she entertained.