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Boston Cream Puffs of the Baker's Shop

Boston cream puffs are small puff pastry shells filled with pastry cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Boston Cream Puffs of the Baker's Shop

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the paste

  1. Bring the water to a boil with the lard and salt.

  2. Add the flour all at once and stir over the heat for about 5 minutes until it forms a stiff paste.

  3. Remove from heat and beat in the eggs one at a time.

Bake and fill

  1. Drop small spoonfuls of the paste onto lightly greased baking sheets, leaving an inch of space between them.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for about 20 minutes.

  3. Cut a slit in the side of each puff and fill with pastry cream.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. 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
Starch that gelatinizes with the hot water to form the stiff paste that holds the puffs' shape.
Eggs
Add structure as they set, and moisture that turns to steam to lift the puffs.
Lard or butter
Adds fat for tenderness and richness in the paste.

The step that matters

Beating in the eggs. The paste must be cooled slightly before the eggs go in, and each egg must be fully incorporated before the next, so the batter stays smooth and thick. If it is too hot or too loose, the eggs can scramble or the puffs will not rise well and may collapse.

“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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