Skip to main content
Dessert

Cream Puffs

Cream puffs are baked pastry shells filled with a sweet cream mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Cream Puffs

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the custard

  1. In a saucepan, boil the milk.

  2. In a bowl, beat together the flour, sugar, and 2 eggs.

  3. Stir the flour mixture into the boiling milk until thickened.

  4. Add vanilla extract to the mixture and set aside.

Make the choux paste

  1. In another saucepan, combine water and butter and bring to a boil.

  2. Stir in 2 cups of sifted flour while boiling until combined.

  3. Let the mixture cool, then add 5 beaten eggs and ¼ teaspoon baking soda.

  4. Drop spoonfuls of the mixture onto a baking sheet.

Bake and fill

  1. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 30 minutes.

  2. Once baked, open the puffs with a knife and fill with the cream mixture.

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 + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

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

  3. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + vanillatop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,241 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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
Bind the paste and give the puffs structure and lift as they set.
Flour
Thickens the custard and gives the choux paste its body.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, contributing to a tender interior.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard, giving it creaminess.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to the custard filling.
Baking soda
Helps the puffs rise and brown in the oven.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool before adding the eggs. Eggs added to a very hot paste can scramble and fail to emulsify. Cooling to warm lets the eggs blend smoothly, so the paste holds its shape and puffs properly in the oven.

Swap the vanilla

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

  1. Vanillathe original
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Coconutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, egg, milk, 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.

More cream puffs recipes

Boston 12Chocolate 3 See all 281 →

You might also like

Vanilla Ice CreamVanilla Ice Cream108 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipes