''Chouquettes'' () or ''petits choux'' are small pieces of French patisserie consisting of small spheres of

choux pastry Choux pastry, or (), is a delicate pastry dough used in many pastries. The essential ingredients are butter, water, flour and eggs. Instead of a raising agent, choux pastry employs its high moisture content to create steam, as the water in ...

, sugared and baked. The term was known in the 16th century, and was originally applied to small savoury spheres. Since the late 17th century ''choquettes'' have been sweet.

History

In ''

The Oxford Companion to Food ''The Oxford Companion to Food'' is an encyclopedia about food. It was edited by Alan Davidson and published by Oxford University Press in 1999. It was also issued in softcover under the name ''The Penguin Companion to Food''. The second and t ...

'', Alan Davidson writes that the term is of long standing: "A street cry in the 16th century was '' ll hot"Davidson, p. 182 According to (The Treasury of Health), published by Jean-Antoine Huguetan in 1607: Randle Cotgrave's ''A Dictionarie of the French and English Tongues'' (1611) gives the name of the item as "tichous" – "Little cakes made of egges and flower with a little butter (and sometimes cheese among) eaten ordinarily with sugar and Rosewater."Cotgrave, p. 918 Davidson notes that

Antoine Furetière Antoine Furetière (28 December 161914 May 1688) was a French scholar, writer, and lexicographer, known best for his satirical novel ''Scarron's City Romance'', and also his famous Dictionnaire universel . He was expelled from the Académie F ...

's (1690) describes "something closer to the modern ''petits choux'', without cheese". Davidson describes ''chouquettes'' as among the most popular Parisian friandises – "eaten at tea when warm and soft, semi-dry at other times". Wedding cakes are sometimes constructed from them, in the manner of a

croquembouche A croquembouche () or ''croque-en-bouche'' is a French dessert consisting of choux pastry puffs piled into a cone and bound with threads of caramel. In Italy and France, it is often served at weddings, baptisms and First Communions. Etymolog ...

, with crème pâtissière inside.

References

Bibliography

* * *{{cite book , last = Huguetan , first = Jean-Antoine , title = Le Thresor de santé, date = 1607, location =Lyon , publisher =Huguetan , url =https://archive.org/details/BIUSante_39201/page/n5/mode/2up , oclc =1349588711 , ref=none French pastries Choux pastry