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Dessert

Strawberry Puffs

Strawberry Puffs are custard cups made by cooking strawberries in boiling water, then pouring a beaten flour, sugar, butter, egg, and milk batter over them.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By United Methodist Church (Grayville, Ill.) · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Strawberry Puffs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Fill a deep pan with a cover to fit, half filled with boiling water.

  2. Half fill as many cups as you have people to serve with strawberries, a small piece of butter, sugar to taste, and one tablespoon of water.

  3. Put the cups in the boiling water and cover to keep the steam in.

Make the batter

  1. While the fruit cooks, sift together three-quarters of a cup of flour and one tablespoon of granulated sugar.

  2. Rub one tablespoon of butter into the dry mixture.

  3. Beat one egg very lightly, then add one-half cup of sweet milk and pour over the dry ingredients.

  4. Beat the batter hard for one minute.

Steam and serve

  1. Remove the lid of the pan and drop the batter by spoonfuls into the cups on the fruit.

  2. Replace the lid and cook undisturbed for twenty minutes; the batter will be light and flaky.

  3. Turn out into individual dishes.

  4. Serve with whipped cream.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

833Calories
27 gProtein
26 gFat
120 gCarbs

Counts 5 of 6 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 5 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Waternot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By United Methodist Church (Grayville, Ill.). 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. See the original page.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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 structure of the batter that sets as the puffs steam.
Egg
Binds the batter and helps it set and rise when cooked.
Butter
Rubbed into the flour to add tenderness and flakiness.
Milk
Hydrates the flour and gives the batter moisture for steaming.

The step that matters

Keep the lid on while the puffs steam. Trapped steam is what lifts the batter into light puffs. Lifting the lid during cooking lets steam escape and can leave the puffs dense or collapsed.

“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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