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Calumet Fig Eclairs
Put 1 cup of boiling water in a saucepan, add 1/2 cup of butter, bring to a boil, add 1 cup of sifted pastry flour all at once and a pinch of salt. Set away until cold, then add 3 eggs one at a time, beating 4 minutes between the addition of each egg. Drop on a well-oiled pan about 2 inches apart. Bake 30 minutes in a moderate oven. With moderate oven. a thin knife make an incision in side of each large enough to permit of filling with to permit of filling with a fig filling. (See illustration, page 61.)
This is standard cream-puff paste (pâte à choux) shaped into éclairs, split, and filled. The filling itself is a separate recipe in the book, so plan for it before you start.
- Cook the paste properlyThe hinge is the first step: after the flour goes into the boiling butter and water, stir over heat until the paste forms a smooth ball that pulls away from the pan and leaves a film on the bottom. Undercooked paste will not build enough steam to hollow out.
- Cooling before the eggs"Set away until cold" is safe but slow. Modern practice is often to beat the eggs into paste that has cooled only to warm rather than cold, below about 145F so the egg does not set; either way, add them one at a time and beat until the paste is glossy and just falls from the spoon.
- Four minutes per eggWith a stand mixer on medium, one to two minutes per egg is plenty. The instruction reflects hand-beating with a wooden spoon.
- Oven temperatureA "moderate oven" in this period is usually reckoned around 350-375F. Choux does better with a hot start: 425F for the first 10-15 minutes to raise the shells, then down to 350F to dry them out, for 30-35 minutes total. Baked entirely at moderate heat they often stay pale and collapse.
- Pastry flourPastry flour is soft and low in protein. All-purpose works and gives a slightly sturdier shell; measure by weight if you can, roughly 4 oz to the cup for pastry flour and 4 1/4 to 4 1/2 oz for all-purpose.
- Pan preparation"Well-oiled" is more grease than needed today. Parchment on an ungreased sheet gives better footing, since heavily oiled pans let the paste spread.
- Splitting and fillingCut the side incision while the shells are still hot so trapped steam escapes, then cool completely before filling or the filling will slacken.
- YieldOne cup of flour and three eggs makes roughly 10 to 12 of medium size, fewer if dropped generously. Fill them the day they are baked.
Reliable Recipes was published by the Calumet Baking Powder Company as advertising, which is why so many titles in it carry the brand name even when, as here, no baking powder appears in the ingredients at all: choux paste rises entirely on steam and egg. The paste itself is much older than the book; its origin is not settled, being variously credited to a sixteenth-century Italian cook and to eighteenth-century French pastry cooks, and the name pate a choux is traditionally explained by the cabbage-like shape of the puffs rather than documented as such. The eclair, a finger-shaped, filled version, is recorded in Paris by the 1860s. The fig filling reflects a period when dried figs were a common and inexpensive sweet fruit in American pantries, often sold pressed in blocks and stewed down for pies, bars, and puddings.