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Baking

Coen Meal Puffs

A baked cornmeal batter with butter, flour, eggs, milk, and salt.

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 ↓

Coen Meal 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.

Prepare the cornmeal

  1. Scald the cornmeal with boiling water until soft.

  2. Add the cold butter to the hot cornmeal and mix well.

Make the batter

  1. In a separate bowl, beat the eggs and then add the flour, milk, and salt.

  2. Combine the mixtures and stir until smooth.

  3. Pour the batter into gem tins.

Bake

  1. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 25 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Coffee + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,202 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 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 provide structure as they set in the oven.
Flour
Provides structure so the puffs hold their shape after baking.
Cornmeal
Gives the puffs their corn flavour and a tender, slightly grainy texture.
Milk
Adds moisture and helps the batter spread and set evenly.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender crumb.

The step that matters

Pour the batter into gem tins. Batter poured into a hot tin rises quickly and sets around its edges, so the puffs need an even batter and a well-filled tin to rise evenly. Stir the batter smooth first so no lumps of flour or cornmeal remain.

“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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