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 ↓
Cream Puffs
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Make the choux paste
In a saucepan, bring 1 cup of water to a boil and add 2 ounces of butter.
Once boiling, add 1 cup of flour and stir until it forms a smooth paste.
Let the mixture cool.
Beat in the eggs one at a time, mixing thoroughly after each addition.
Stir in 1 teaspoon of baking powder.
Bake and hollow
Drop spoonfuls of the mixture onto baking tins, spaced apart.
Bake at 300°F (150°C) for about 45 minutes, or until the puffs feel very light.
Once cooled, remove the soft inside portion of each puff.
Make the custard filling
Boil 1 quart of milk with 3 eggs and sugar to taste.
Thicken with cornstarch until it reaches a thin custard consistency.
Let the filling cool.
Add lemon or vanilla flavoring.
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.
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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together19,053 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Flour and butter 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 starch structure that holds the puffs' shape as the paste sets.
- Eggs
- Add structure and richness and help the puffs rise and set as they bake.
- Butter
- Adds fat for tenderness and richness in the paste.
- Milk
- Provides the liquid base of the custard filling.
- Cornstarch
- Thickens the milk into a custard by gelatinising its starch when heated.
The step that matters
Bake until the puffs feel very light. Underbaked puffs have wet, steamy interiors that collapse as they cool. The shell must dry out fully so it stays hollow to hold the filling.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, butter, egg, milk, sugar):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Figfits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, egg, milk, sugar. 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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