Instructions: Because chocolate eclairs are one of my great weaknesses - and a little hard to come by - I had to develop mastery at an early age of the wonderful pastry that makes them, and cream puffs, possible. The French call it pate a choux

(paht-a-SHOO), and it is an alchemical brew of water, butter, seasonings, flour, and eggs that come together in a most unlikely way.

First you put a saucepan with some water, butter, and salt (sugar if making a dessert) on to boil. When the mixture reaches a furious bubbling state you immediately take the pan off the heat, dump in the flour, and stir like mad with a wooden spoon to make an unpromising-looking pasty mixture called a panade.

Back onto the heat the pan goes for about one more minute of rapid stirring until the dough balls up around the spoon and forms filmy wisps of paste on the bottom of the pan.

Then off the heat the pan comes and in go the eggs, one by one, beaten into the hot paste with the spoon until the mixture is silky smooth. Thats it.

The miracle of the whole thing is that this warm golden-looking dough can be shaped into logs for eclairs or spooned into heaps to bake into mountainous cases for cream puffs. The only leavening in pate a choux is the eggs. They make the paste go puff in the oven, and the result is nothing short of a miracle.

Whether you pipe eclairs through a pastry bag or shape cream puffs by spooning mounds of dough onto a parchment-lined baking sheet, leave at least two inches of space between them to allow for their expansion.

For a maximum puff - about 3 times the original volume - the oven must be hot

(425 F; 220 C) when the pate a choux goes in. Set the pan in the oven, close the door, and wait. After 20 minutes, reduce the oven thermostat to 375 F

(190 C), and continue baking another 30 minutes or so until the puffs are done.

The hardest part of making pate a choux is the waiting. You must not open the oven to take a peek for at least 20 minutes or the puffs may collapse. This was agony the first time I made cream puffs. My oven didnt have a window in the door, and I hated not being able to see what was happening inside.

But why was this so? I never cared to sneak a peek when muffins or cakes were baking. I always took it for granted theyd rise. Maybe its because I doubted the heights to which these puffs would grow unless I actually witnessed it happening. If I could just see, I told myself, it might help them along. And so I waited. And when I looked later, they had inflated amazingly!

The choux cases are done when they turn a deep golden brown color and feel very firm to the touch. One last thing must be done before taking them from the oven. Pierce the sides in two or three places with the tip of a sharp knife and bake a few minutes more.

This releases the moisture trapped inside and helps dry out the puffs. After cooling completely on a wire rack, cut the tops off with a sharp serrated knife and scoop out the soft, eggy, doughy insides. You just want to use the crisp cases, which are now ready to be filled with sweetened whipped cream or a pastry cream. To minimize these soft interiors, substitute a couple of egg whites for one of the eggs, since egg whites have a drying effect.

Choux paste is not only for desserts. Theres a wonderful appetizer the French make called gougere. This is simply shredded cheese, usually Gruyere or Fontina, stirred into the basic choux mixture. The dough is spooned in a ring onto a baking sheet, brushed with beaten egg, and baked in a hot oven until it has puffed gloriously and is well browned. The contrast between the crispy outside and the custardy inside is heavenly. and feel free to peek in after the minimum time, the gougere wont mind.

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