Skip to main content
Dessert

Boston Cream Puffs

Boston Cream Puffs are puff pastry shells filled with a sweet milk custard.

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

Why it works: Milk and corn are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,955 recipes. Both carry hexanal, which smells green, grassy. The science ↓

Boston Cream Puffs

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the choux

  1. Boil water and lard until the lard is melted.

  2. Stir in flour quickly until well mixed.

  3. Remove from heat and stir until well worked.

  4. Let cool in a wooden bowl.

  5. Slowly work in the eggs, then add ammonia.

  6. Drop the mixture onto well-greased and lightly dusted pans.

  7. Wash the puffs.

Bake

  1. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C).

  2. When baked, cut open the side to let steam escape.

Make the filling

  1. For the filling, boil milk.

  2. Mix sugar and corn starch together, then stir into the boiling milk.

  3. Let it boil until thick.

  4. Remove from heat.

  5. Stir in eggs and flavoring.

  6. Let the filling cool.

Fill and serve

  1. Fill the puffs with a small tablespoonful of the filling.

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 + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  2. Flour + corntop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Corn + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,927 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Flour and milk 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

Flour
Forms the starch structure that holds the puffs' hollow shape.
Eggs
Add structure and moisture, and help the puffs rise and set.
Lard
Provides fat that tenderizes the dough and adds richness.
Milk
Gives the filling its liquid base and creamy body.
Corn starch
Thickens the filling as it boils.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the filling and keeps it smooth.

The step that matters

Drop the mixture onto well-greased and lightly dusted pans / Bake in a moderate oven. The choux must be stiff enough to hold its shape and bake in a hot oven so steam forms and the puffs rise hollow; if the batter is too loose or the oven too cool, they spread and collapse.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

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

You might also like

Lemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipesCorn CakeCorn Cake90 recipes