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Dessert

Chocolate Puffs

Chocolate puffs are small, airy cakes made from beaten egg whites, powdered sugar, and chocolate, baked until crisp.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and chocolate are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,404 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Chocolate Puffs

Oven, in the book's wordsA brisk oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the mixture

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff.

  2. Gradually beat in the powdered sugar.

  3. Finely grate the chocolate and dredge it with flour to prevent oiling.

  4. Mix the dredged chocolate with the egg and sugar mixture, stirring well.

Shape the puffs

  1. Line a square tin pan with white paper.

  2. Place spots of powdered sugar about the size of a half dollar on the paper.

  3. Put a portion of the mixture on each spot, smoothing it with a knife dipped in cold water.

  4. Sift white sugar over the top of each puff.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a brisk oven at 400°F (200°C) for a few minutes.

  2. Once cooled, loosen the puffs with a broad knife.

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. Sugar + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Chocolate + flourtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,994 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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

Egg whites
Whipped to stiff foam, they give the puffs their light, airy structure.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the mixture and dissolves into the whipped whites, helping stabilise the foam.
Chocolate
Provides the main chocolate flavour and the solid body of each puff.
Flour
Lightly coats the grated chocolate so it disperses evenly instead of releasing oil.

The step that matters

Dredging the chocolate with flour. Grated chocolate left bare can release its cocoa butter as oil when mixed in, which makes the mixture greasy and weakens the foam. A light flour coating keeps the chocolate evenly dispersed.

“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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