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German Puff

A baked batter of milk, flour, butter, and eggs, served hot with sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓

German Puff

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Warm the milk and add the butter until melted.

  2. Let the mixture cool, then beat the egg yolks until thick and stir them into the milk mixture.

  3. In a separate bowl, add the flour and mix in the milk mixture.

  4. Whisk the egg whites until stiff and gently fold them into the batter.

Bake and serve

  1. Butter a long square pan and fill it halfway with the mixture.

  2. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) until golden.

  3. Serve hot with your preferred sauce.

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 + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + flourtop 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).

Flour and butter 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
Egg yolks enrich and thicken the batter, while whipped whites lift it and give an airy structure.
Flour
Provides the starch and gluten that set the batter's structure as it bakes.
Milk
Supplies moisture and liquid that turns to steam, helping the puff rise in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and tenderness and helps the crust brown.

The step that matters

Fold in the egg whites gently. Whisked egg whites hold air bubbles that give the puff its lift. Stirring them vigorously deflates the foam, so the batter rises less 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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