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Dessert

Fruit Puff

A steamed pastry filled with fruit, made from a batter of egg, milk, flour, sugar, and baking powder.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Fruit Puff

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Beat the yolk of one egg with two heaping tablespoons of sugar in a bowl.

  2. Beat the egg white to a froth and add a pinch of salt.

  3. Stir the egg mixture into one cup of sweet milk.

  4. Combine two heaping cups of flour, three tablespoons of additional flour, and three tablespoons of baking powder in a separate bowl.

  5. Sift the flour mixture together three times.

  6. Add the flour mixture to the egg and sugar mixture.

Fill and steam

  1. Partly fill puff cups with the batter, add a layer of fruit, then fill with more batter.

  2. Steam for 30 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve with sugar and cream or wine 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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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
The yolk and beaten white give the batter structure and a light, airy lift.
Flour
Forms the body of the batter, setting into the soft crumb of the puff.
Baking powder
Releases gas during cooking, helping the puffs rise and become light.
Sweet milk
Adds moisture to the batter so the flour hydrates into a pourable mixture.
Sugar
Sweetens the batter and adds mild tenderness to the crumb.

The step that matters

Add the flour mixture to the egg and sugar mixture. Mix only until combined after adding the dry ingredients. Overmixing develops gluten and makes the puffs tough and dense rather than light.

“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 fruit puff recipes

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