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Dessert

Cream Puffs

Cream puffs are pastries filled with a cornstarch cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 dough

  1. In a saucepan, bring 1 cup of water and ½ cup of butter to a boil.

  2. Mix 1 cup of flour and 1 teaspoon of baking powder, then add to the boiling water, stirring until smooth.

  3. Remove from heat and let cool.

  4. Once cooled, add 3 whole eggs and the whites of 2 eggs; beat thoroughly.

Bake the puffs

  1. Drop a tablespoon of the mixture onto a baking sheet and bake at 300°F (150°C) until golden.

Make and fill

  1. For the filling, make a cornstarch cream using 2 eggs and add milk as needed.

  2. After the puffs and filling have cooled, cut the tops off the puffs and insert the cream filling.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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
Provides the starch and gluten that give the cooked dough its structure.
Eggs
Set during baking to hold the puffs' shape and add richness and lift.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderizes the dough and adds flavor.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking to help the puffs rise and open up.
Milk
Adds moisture and creaminess to the filling.

The step that matters

Let the dough cool before adding the eggs. If the dough is still very hot, the eggs can partly cook or scramble when beaten in. Cooling keeps them smooth and lets the dough form a glossy batter that rises evenly in the oven.

“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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