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Dessert

Cream Puffs

A baked puff made from lard, water, flour, eggs, and optionally dry ammonia, filled with cream and dusted with powdered sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Wheat and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,373 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Cream Puffs

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.

Make the choux paste

  1. In a pan, combine the water and lard, then heat until boiling.

  2. Add the flour and stir on the heat until the mixture pulls away from the pan.

  3. Remove from heat and transfer to a mixing bowl.

  4. Incorporate the eggs one at a time, stirring until fully combined.

  5. If using, add the dry ammonia; otherwise, add one more egg.

Bake and fill

  1. Drop spoonfuls of the mixture onto a greased baking sheet, about the size of an egg.

  2. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) until golden.

  3. Let cool, then cut a small slit in the side of each puff.

  4. Fill with cream and dust with powdered sugar.

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. Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Wheat + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

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

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

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

Flour and egg 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

Eggs
Add structure as they set, and steam from them helps the puffs rise and go hollow.
Spring wheat flour
Its starch gelatinises with the liquid, giving the paste body to hold its shape.
Lard
Adds fat that tenderises the paste and contributes to a rich, flaky texture.
Water
Turns to steam in the oven, lifting the paste so the puffs expand.

The step that matters

Drying the flour paste on the heat. Stirring until the mixture pulls away from the pan cooks the starch and drives off moisture. A wetter paste spreads instead of rising, and the eggs then cannot build a hollow structure.

“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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