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 ↓
Apple Puffs
Ingredients
Directions
Make the batter
In a bowl, mix milk, beaten eggs, baking powder, salt, and melted butter (if using water) to create a batter thicker than pancake batter.
Fill and steam
Half fill buttered cups with the chopped apples.
Pour the batter into the cups until full.
Place the cups in a steamer and steam for about 1 hour.
Serve
Serve hot with cream and sugar or a liquid sauce.
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.
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Milk + appletop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,104 recipes
Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).
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Butter + appletop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,706 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, 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 set during steaming to give the puff its structure.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas in the batter, so the puff rises and becomes light.
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base of the batter and adds richness and tenderness.
- Apples
- Provide moisture and fruity flavour that soften as the puff steams.
The step that matters
Filling the cups. Leave room above the apples so the batter can rise as it steams. Overfilling can cause spillage, while a thin batter may not set well enough to hold its shape.
Swap the apple
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, egg, butter):
- Vanillafits better
- Coconutfits better
- Figfits about as well
- Applethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg, 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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