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Dessert

Cream Puffs

A baked pastry made from choux dough, filled with a sweet milk-based custard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Cream Puffs

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the puffs

  1. Boil water and butter together in a saucepan.

  2. Stir in flour while boiling, then let it cool.

  3. Add baking soda and beaten eggs, mixing well.

  4. Drop spoonfuls of the mixture onto buttered baking sheets.

  5. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 20 minutes.

Make the filling and assemble

  1. For the filling, boil milk in a separate pot.

  2. In a bowl, beat together sugar, flour, and eggs.

  3. Stir the mixture into the boiling milk and cook for 1 minute, stirring constantly.

  4. Remove from heat and add lemon and vanilla extracts.

  5. Once cool, fill the cream puffs with the mixture.

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.

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. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

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

  3. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + vanillatop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,241 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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 of the choux paste and thickens the custard filling.
Eggs
Provide structure and richness, binding the paste and setting the custard.
Butter
Adds fat and tenderness to the choux paste.
Milk
Provides liquid that thickens with the starch into a creamy filling.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps give it a smooth texture.
Baking soda
Helps the puffs rise and lighten during baking.

The step that matters

Stirring the mixture into the boiling milk. Stirring constantly keeps the starch and egg from clumping or scorching on the bottom, giving a smooth custard that thickens evenly as it cooks.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Figfits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

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