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Dessert

Cream Pufes

Cream puffs are baked pastry shells filled with a sweet custard made from milk, sugar, corn starch, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Cream Pufes

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the choux dough

  1. Boil the butter and water together.

  2. Stir in the flour while boiling and let it cool.

  3. Add 5 well-beaten eggs to the mixture.

  4. Drop spoonfuls onto baking tins.

Bake and fill

  1. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until golden.

  2. For the filling, mix 1 pint of milk, 1 cup of sugar, ⅔ cup of corn starch, and 2 eggs.

  3. Beat the filling mixture until smooth and fill the puffs.

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 + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Corn + vanillatop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,943 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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
Provides the starch structure that holds the puffed dough shape.
Eggs
Add structure and lift to the dough and set the custard filling.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and helps the dough stay tender.
Corn starch
Thickens the filling so it becomes smooth and sliceable when set.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the filling and adds creaminess.

The step that matters

Bake until golden. Steam from the water and butter inflates the dough, but it must bake until dry and golden. If removed early, the puffs can collapse as they cool because their walls are still wet and weak.

“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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