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Dessert

Puffs for Dicker

A baked custard puff served with peach sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Puffs for Dicker

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Beat the eggs thoroughly.

  3. Gradually add the flour and milk to the eggs.

  4. Fill custard cups about half full with the mixture.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in the preheated oven for about 10 minutes.

  2. Beat the peaches with the butter and sugar to make a sauce.

  3. Serve the puffs directly from the oven with the peach sauce.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Milk + peachtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together781 recipes

    Shared aroma: phellandrene (minty).

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Peach + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together860 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Provide structure and lift, setting the batter as the puffs bake.
Flour
Gives the batter body so it holds its shape while baking.
Milk
Adds moisture to the batter, helping it steam and puff in the oven.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the peach sauce, giving it a smooth texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the peach sauce and balances the fruit's tartness.
Peaches
Provide the fruit flavor and body of the sauce.

The step that matters

Bake in the preheated oven. The puffs rise from steam produced as the batter heats quickly in a hot oven. Starting in a properly preheated oven and serving promptly matters, because the puffs deflate as they cool.

Swap the peach

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, egg, milk, sugar, butter):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Peachthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, egg, milk, sugar, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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