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Dessert

Corn-meal Puffs

A baked cornmeal and wheat flour puff with butter, eggs, and sugar, served hot.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Corn and wheat match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 465 recipes. Both carry hexanal, which smells green, grassy. The science ↓

Corn-meal Puffs

Oven, in the book's wordsA steady oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a steady oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the flour

  1. Sift baking soda and cream of tartar twice through the flour.

  2. Mix corn flour and wheat flour together, and sift a third time.

Make the batter

  1. Boil the milk and stir in the corn flour, wheat flour, and salt.

  2. Boil for ten minutes, stirring well from the bottom.

  3. Remove from heat, transfer to a bowl, add butter, and beat hard for three minutes.

  4. Let cool while whipping the egg whites until light.

  5. Beat in the egg yolks, sugar, and spices into the cooled mixture.

  6. Gently fold in the whipped egg whites.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour into greased cups or small corn‑bread molds and bake in a steady oven at 350°F (175°C).

  2. When done, turn out and serve hot, breaking them open, buttering, and sprinkling with sugar.

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. Corn + wheattop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together465 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  2. Milk + wheattop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

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

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

  4. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Whipped whites trap air and lift the puffs, while yolks add richness and structure.
White corn flour
Provides the main body and structure of the puffs.
Wheat flour
Adds gluten to help hold the batter together and give it structure.
Baking soda
Reacts with cream of tartar to produce gas that helps the puffs rise.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the batter and stabilizes the leavening reaction with baking soda.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and a richer flavor.

The step that matters

Folding in the whipped egg whites. Egg whites hold air only while whipped; overmixing or deflating them during folding loses the air that lifts the puffs, so fold gently and quickly into the cooled batter.

“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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