Skip to main content
Dessert

German Puff Dumplings

Steamed dumplings made from flour, baking powder, salt, sugar, milk, butter, and egg.

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

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 Dumplings

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the dough

  1. In a bowl, mix flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar.

  2. In another bowl, whisk together milk, melted butter, and egg.

  3. Combine wet and dry ingredients until just mixed.

  4. Shape the dough into balls.

Steam

  1. Boil water in a pot and place dumplings in a steamer above the water.

  2. Cover and steam for about 15-20 minutes until cooked through.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

All-purpose flour
Provides the starch and gluten structure that holds the dumpling together.
Baking powder
Releases gas during cooking, helping the dumplings rise and turn light and airy.
Egg
Adds structure and richness, helping the dough set as it cooks.
Milk
Hydrates the flour and adds moisture and softness to the dough.
Melted butter
Adds fat for tenderness and a richer flavor in the crumb.

The step that matters

Combine wet and dry ingredients until just mixed. Overmixing develops too much gluten in the flour, making the dumplings tough and dense instead of soft and light. Stop as soon as no dry flour remains.

“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