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Dessert

Miss Lubey’s Cream Puffs. 1 Doz.

Light pastry shells filled with cream, made from butter, flour, eggs, and boiling water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Evora Bucknum Perkins · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Miss Lubey’s Cream Puffs. 1 Doz.

Ingredients

Directions

Make the choux dough

  1. Add dry flour all at once to boiling water and butter; stir quickly over the fire until the mixture forms a ball that leaves the pan; remove from fire and stir until partly cool; add beaten yolks of eggs, part at a time, beating well, then slightly beaten whites; beat; set in a cold place, covered, for 1 hour or more.

  2. Optional: Cream butter and flour together first, pour boiling water over, then cook as before.

Bake

  1. Drop spoonfuls about 2 inches apart onto an oiled and floured tin; flatten with a brush or fingers dipped in milk (may leave unshaped); bake in oven, starting quick then slower until no “singing”.

Make the filling

  1. For the filling, mix sugar and flour, pour boiling milk over, boil up well; pour over beaten eggs, return to fire until just creamy, not boiling, cool; add salt and flavoring.

  2. If a thicker cream is preferred, use ½ cup of flour and cook in a double boiler for 15 minutes before adding the eggs.

Fill and serve

  1. To fill, cut open at the side with shears.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

772Calories
21 gProtein
21 gFat
125 gCarbs

Counts 7 of 9 ingredients. The other 2 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 7 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Grape1/2 cup (76g)62
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Walnut1 walnut half (4g)26
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Pastrynot in our table0
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 Evora Bucknum Perkins. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Raisin + nutstop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together490 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Flour + nutstop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,180 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 a starch paste that sets around the steam, giving the puffs their structure.
Eggs
Add moisture and structure, and set the filling into a creamy custard.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender texture in the dough.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to the filling.

The step that matters

Adding the eggs to the paste. The paste must be cool enough that the eggs do not scramble, and the eggs must be added gradually and beaten well. This keeps the dough smooth and elastic so it holds its shape and rises in the oven.

Swap the nuts

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Pistachiofits better
  4. Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, egg, sugar, raisin. 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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