22 June: Chocolate Eclair Day

Today is Chocolate éclair day. 10 things you might not know about Chocolate éclairs.

1. These tasty treats get their name from the French word for Lightning. There are two possible explanations for this - one is that the glaze on it sparkles so that it resembling a lightning bolt, the other is that it refers to the speed at which they get eaten.
2. We don't know the origin of Chocolate éclairs for certain, but the best guess is that they were invented by Marie Antoine Carême, a chef popular with the French royal family, in the early 1800s.
3. At that time, they weren't called éclairs, but rather, ‘pain à la duchesse’ or ‘petite duchesse’, which mean ‘bread duchess’ and ‘little duchess’ respectively.
4. The word éclair was first mentioned in the English language in an 1861 edition of Vanity Fair magazine.
5. The first known English-language recipe for éclairs appeared in the Boston Cooking School Cook Book by Mrs. D.A. Lincoln, published in 1884.
6. They are made from the same type of pastry as a profiterole, only made into a shape like a Hot dog bun.
7. The most popular chocolate eclair fillings are vanilla cream or whipped cream, but you can get them filled with fruit, nut, Coffee or Rum. Savoury versions are also available.
8. In America, you may hear people refer to them as “Long Johns”. A Long John is a slightly different type of cake - they are made from Doughnut pastry rather than profiterole Pastry.
9. An éclair with a Caramel glazing instead of chocolate is called a bâton de Jacob.
10. Theodore Roosevelt once commented about someone, “He has no more backbone than a chocolate éclair.”

The Raiders Trilogy

Book One

Book Three

Book Two

   

Power Blaster is a superhero who lives in a dimension not unlike our own, in the mega-nation of Innovia. No-one knows who he is or where his powers come from. 
After saving the life of the President several times, Power Blaster learns that a test of a nuclear warhead to defend the planet against asteroid strikes will have devastating consequences for his world and sets out to prevent it.

Power Blaster's actions lead to an unexpected result - a wormhole opens between his dimension and our own. Anyone in the vicinity is pulled through. People from diverse backgrounds and cultures must co-operate to survive and learn to live with the powers travel through the wormhole has bestowed on some of them.

A stable wormhole is established between the two dimensions. Power Blaster is determined to bring Desi Troyes, the person responsible for the bomb, to justice. Help comes from some rather unexpected sources. Meanwhile, Shanna Douglas sets out on a mission of her own, to find out if there is a cure for the life altering condition the wormhole gave her friend, Benedict Cole. Little does she know that she will stumble upon the secret of Power Blaster's mysterious origins.