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Dessert

Raisin Puff

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Raisin Puff

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Mix the butter and chopped raisins together.

  2. In a separate bowl, beat the eggs with the sugar and milk.

  3. Sift the baking powder into the flour and mix all ingredients together.

Steam

  1. Pour the mixture into nine buttered cups.

  2. Steam for 1 hour, or use six cups and steam for 1 hour.

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. Milk + flourtop 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

Eggs
Bind the batter and help it set as it steams.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the puff together.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so it rises and becomes light.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender texture and rich flavor.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and contributes to a soft crumb.
Milk
Adds moisture so the batter pours and cooks through evenly.

The step that matters

Steam for the full hour. Steam gives gentle, even heat that lets the batter rise and set through the center. Cutting the time short can leave the puffs dense, gummy, or undercooked inside, while the steam keeps them moist rather than dry.

Swap the raisin

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

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

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