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Spanish Puffs

Spanish Puffs are fried dough fritters made with eggs, flour, milk, sugar, spices, and baking powder.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Spanish Puffs

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix the flour with enough milk to form a smooth paste.

  2. Add the eggs, sugar, nutmeg, cinnamon, and allspice; mix well.

  3. Stir in a little baking powder.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry the mixture like corn fritters until golden brown.

  2. Dust with powdered sugar before serving.

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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Nutmeg + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 add richness and structure as they set in the frying.
All-purpose flour
Forms the paste and builds the body that holds the puffs together.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the outside brown in the frying.
Baking powder
Releases gas that lifts the batter so the puffs rise and turn light.

The step that matters

Frying the mixture. The batter must be fried at a steady heat until golden brown. Too cool and the puffs soak up oil and turn greasy; too hot and the outside browns before the centre cooks through.

Swap the allspice

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

  1. Cardamomfits about as well
  2. Allspicethe original
  3. Clovefits about as well
  4. Turmericfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, flour, sugar, nutmeg, cinnamon. 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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