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Dessert

Cream Puffs

Cream puffs are pastry shells filled with a sweet cream or alternative filling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

Cream Puffs

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the puffs

  1. Melt the butter in boiling water.

  2. Stir in the flour while boiling, then remove from heat and cool.

  3. Once cool, stir in the eggs one at a time until smooth.

  4. Drop spoonfuls onto baking sheets and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 25 minutes.

Make and fill the puffs

  1. When cool, open the side of each puff.

  2. Beat together sugar, eggs, and flour.

  3. Stir in boiling milk.

  4. Combine sugar, egg, milk, and cornstarch, and add flavor.

  5. Boil until thick.

  6. Cool the filling before using it to fill the puffs.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Butter
Adds fat that gives the choux dough tenderness and richness.
All-purpose flour
Starch that sets with the hot liquid to form the dough's structure.
Eggs
Bind the dough and give the puffs structure so they hold their shape.
Milk
Liquid that forms the body of the custard filling.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to the filling.
Cornstarch
Thickens the filling as it boils.

The step that matters

Stir in the eggs one at a time after the dough has cooled. Eggs added to very hot dough can scramble, and adding them gradually while the dough is cool lets each one blend in. This produces a smooth, glossy dough that rises and holds its shape when baked.

“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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