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Dessert

German Puffs

A small cake made from milk, eggs, flour, butter, and nutmeg, topped with a thin egg‑white icing sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Gibson, Marietta Fauntleroy Hollyday, "Mrs. C. H. Gibson." · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

German Puffs

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, combine one pint milk, six eggs well beaten, four tablespoons flour, one tablespoon melted butter, and grated nutmeg. Mix well, leaving out the whites of three eggs for sauce.

  2. Pour the mixture into cups well buttered, filling them half full.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a quick oven.

  2. Turn them onto a dish and pour the sauce over them.

Make the sauce

  1. Whisk the whites of the three eggs into a thin icing with crushed sugar.

  2. Add lemon juice or rose water to the icing.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

808Calories
28 gProtein
27 gFat
112 gCarbs

Counts 6 of 7 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 6 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Nutmeg1 tsp ground (2.2g)12
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12
Icingnot 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 Gibson, Marietta Fauntleroy Hollyday, "Mrs. C. H. Gibson.". 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. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

  3. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Eggs
Set the batter into a light, custard-like structure as they bake.
Flour
Gives the batter body so it holds its shape while rising in the oven.
Milk
Provides liquid that turns to steam in the oven, helping the cakes puff.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the cups release and brown slightly.
Egg whites
Whisked with sugar into a thin icing that gives the sauce its sweetness and body.

The step that matters

Bake in a quick oven. A hot oven makes the batter's moisture turn to steam quickly, lifting the cakes into a puff before the egg structure sets. A slow oven lets them sink and turn dense.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg, butter, flour, nutmeg. 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.

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