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Pop-overs

A quick, puffed bread made with flour, milk, eggs, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Pop-overs

six cups
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.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. In a bowl, mix the flour, milk, egg yolks, and salt until smooth.

  3. Butter six earthen cups and place them in the oven to heat.

Bake

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form, then quickly fold them into the batter.

  2. Pour the batter into the hot buttered cups.

  3. Bake in the hot oven until they rise and are brown on the sides, about 20-25 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve immediately, with butter or maple syrup.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the risen walls of the popover.
Milk
Supplies moisture that turns to steam, helping the batter puff in the oven.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help bind the batter into a smooth, tender mixture.
Egg whites
Whipped into stiff peaks, they trap air and give the popovers their rise.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whites must be beaten to stiff peaks and folded in quickly so the air bubbles are not lost. The air and steam from the hot cups drive the rise.

“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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