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Dessert

German Puffs, Almond

A small almond-based puff pastry baked in a 400°F oven, served hot with wine or sweet sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,673 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

German Puffs, Almond

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.

Prepare the batter

  1. Blanch and pound the sweet and bitter almonds with a little orange‑flower or rose‑water.

  2. Mix 4 tablespoons of milk with 1 tablespoon of flour until smooth.

  3. Add the milk‑flour mixture, egg yolks, egg whites, salt, and sugar to the almond mixture; beat thoroughly.

Bake and serve

  1. Butter some cups and fill them a little more than half full with the mixture.

  2. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for about 15 minutes.

  3. Serve hot with wine or sweet 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. Almond + flourtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Almond + orangetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,125 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

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

  4. Almond + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

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

Almonds
Provide the main body and nutty flavour of the puffs.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help bind the batter.
Egg whites
Help the puffs rise and set with a light, airy structure.
Flour
Thickens the batter slightly so it holds its shape while baking.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the tops brown in the oven.

The step that matters

Beat the batter thoroughly. Thorough beating traps air in the egg whites, which expands in the oven and gives the puffs their lift. Under-beaten batter bakes dense and flat.

Swap the orange

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (almond, milk, flour, egg, sugar, butter):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against almond, milk, flour, egg, sugar, butter. 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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