Skip to main content
Dessert

Raisin Puffs

A steamed pastry made with butter, sugar, eggs, flour, milk, baking powder, and raisins.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Raisin Puffs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Preheat a steamer.

  2. In a bowl, cream the butter and sugar together.

  3. Beat in the eggs one at a time.

  4. Mix in the flour and baking powder alternately with the milk.

  5. Fold in the chopped raisins.

Steam and serve

  1. Pour the batter into small cups.

  2. Steam for 30 minutes.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  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 + milktop 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

Butter
Adds richness and tenderness to the crumb as it is creamed with sugar.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as the puffs set during steaming.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the puffs once the batter sets.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the puffs rise light and airy.
Milk
Hydrates the flour and adds moisture to the batter.
Raisins
Add pockets of sweetness and chewy texture throughout the puffs.

The step that matters

Steam for 30 minutes. Steam must stay steady and the batter must go into the steamer promptly after mixing, because baking powder starts releasing gas once wet. Lifting the lid lets cool air in and can cause the puffs to fall or turn heavy.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Vanillafits about as well
  2. Raisinthe original
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Coconutfits less well

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

You might also like

White CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesSpice CakeSpice Cake344 recipes