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Dessert

39 Nun's Puffs,

A light, airy puff made from milk, butter, flour, eggs, and optional sugar, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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 ↓

39 Nun's Puffs,

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the paste

  1. Rinse a saucepan in water to reduce the risk of burning.

  2. Heat the milk and butter in the saucepan until boiling.

  3. Stir in the flour smoothly and let it cool.

Add the eggs

  1. Beat in the yolks of the eggs.

  2. Fold in the beaten egg whites last.

Bake

  1. Fill gem pans or cups halfway and bake for 20 minutes at 400°F (200°C).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + flourtop 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).

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

Milk
Its water turns to steam in the oven, helping the puffs rise and go light.
Butter
Its fat melts into the boiling liquid, adding richness and a tender crumb.
Flour
Its starch swells with the liquid and sets during baking, giving the puffs their structure.
Eggs
The yolks enrich and bind the paste, while the whites add lift and a hollow interior.

The step that matters

Let the paste cool before adding the eggs. Paste that is still very hot can scramble the eggs when they are beaten in, leaving lumps and a poor texture. Cooling it slightly lets the eggs blend smoothly into a batter that holds its shape and rises well.

“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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