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Corn Meal Puffs

A baked cornmeal puff made with milk, corn flour, wheat flour, eggs, butter, sugar, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Corn and wheat match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 465 recipes. Both carry hexanal, which smells green, grassy. The science ↓

Corn Meal Puffs

Oven, in the book's wordsA steady oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the batter

  1. Boil the milk and stir in the corn flour, wheat flour, and salt.

  2. Boil for 15 minutes, stirring well from the bottom.

  3. Add the butter and beat hard in a bowl for 3 minutes.

  4. Mix in the whipped eggs, sugar, seasoning, and baking soda. Whip well.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in greased cups in a steady oven at 350°F (175°C).

  2. Turn out of cups and serve with pudding sauce or butter.

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. Corn + wheattop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together465 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  2. Milk + wheattop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

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

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

  4. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as they set in the oven.
White corn flour
Forms the thick starch base that holds the puffs together.
Wheat flour
Adds gluten to give the puffs more body and structure.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the cream of tartar to lift the batter as it bakes.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender crumb.

The step that matters

Beat the cooked batter hard after adding the butter. Vigorous beating develops a smooth, cohesive batter that can trap steam and rise. Under-beating leaves a dense base that bakes up heavy and flat.

“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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