Why it works: Milk and butter match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and 81,222 recipes mention both. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
The recipe
Ingredients
Contains: egg, milk, wheat (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)
Directions
Make the puffs
Make a soft dough with milk, using about one cupful.
Put a spoonful of the dough into well-greased cups. Add a spoonful of strawberries. Add another spoonful of dough.
Steam for twenty minutes.
Turn out onto a platter.
Make the sauce
Cream two tablespoons of butter. Add gradually one cupful of powdered sugar and a little lemon juice.
Beat in crushed berries until the mixture holds.
Serve sauce cold or melted over hot water.
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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.
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Milk + buttertop 3% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together81,222 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Cream + buttertop 3% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together41,494 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Cream + gelatintop 4% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together1,628 recipes
Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
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Milk + teatop 4% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together738 recipes
Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).
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Sugar + gelatintop 5% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together2,778 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Milk
- Moistens the dough so it holds together and steams into a soft, tender puff.
- Strawberries
- Add fruit flavour and moisture inside each puff and to the sauce.
- Butter
- Adds richness and helps the sauce become smooth and creamy when creamed.
- Powdered sugar
- Sweetens the sauce and dissolves smoothly into the creamed butter.
The step that matters
Adding the dough and berries to the cups. Well-greased cups prevent sticking when the puffs are turned out. Dough must be spooned in evenly so the puffs steam through and set rather than turn out dense or raw in the centre.
“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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