Put one cupful of boiling water and half a cupful of butter in a large sauce-pan, and when it boils up. turn in one pint of flour. Beat well with the vegetable masher. When perfectly smooth, and velvety to the touch, remove from the fire. Break five eggs into a bowl. When the paste is nearly cold, beat the eggs into it with the hand. Only a small part of the eggs should be added at a time. When the mixture is thoroughly beaten (it will take about twenty minutes), spread on buttered sheets in oblong pieces about four inches long and one and a half wide. These must be about two inches apart. Bake in a rather quick oven for about twenty-five minutes. As soon as they are done, ice with either chocolate or vanilla frosting. When the icing is cold, cut the eclairs on one side and fill them.

Chocolate Eclairs

Put one cupful and a half of milk in the double boiler. Beat together two-thirds of a cupful of sugar, one-fourth of a cupful of flour, two eggs, and one-fourth of a teaspoonful of salt. Stir the mixture into the boiling milk. Cook fifteen minutes, stirring often. When cold, flavor with one tea-spoonful of vanilla extract. Put two squares of scraped chocolate with five table-spoonfuls of powdered sugar and three of boiling water. Stir over the fire until smooth and glossy. Dip the tops of the eclairs in this as they come from the oven. When the chocolate icing is dry, cut open, and fill with the cream, which should be cold. If a chocolate flavor is liked with the cream, one table-spoonful of the dissolved chocolate may be added to it.

Vanilla Eclairs

Make an icing with the whites of two eggs and a cupful and a half of powdered sugar. Flavor with one teaspoonful of vanilla extract. Frost the eclairs; and when dry, open, and fill with a cream, the same as chocolate eclairs. They may be filled with cream sweetened, flavored with vanilla and whipped to a stiff froth. Strawberry and raspberry preserves are sometimes used to fill eclairs. They are then named after the fruit with which they are filled.