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Cream Puffs

Cream puffs are baked dough filled with custard and iced with powdered sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Corn and coconut match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 306 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Cream Puffs

Oven, in the book's wordsA very quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the choux dough

  1. In a saucepan, combine hot water and nut oil and bring to a boil.

  2. Add sifted flour and stir until smooth and it pulls away from the pan.

  3. Remove from heat and let cool.

  4. Add beaten eggs and salt and stir frequently for 30 minutes.

  5. Drop large spoonfuls onto oiled baking sheets, spaced 2 inches apart.

  6. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for 15-20 minutes until light and crisp.

Make the custard

  1. Once cooled, cut a slit in the side of each puff.

  2. For the custard, heat coconut milk in a double boiler.

  3. Stir in corn-starch mixed with a little cold water.

  4. Add sugar and salt and bring to a boil while stirring constantly.

  5. Cook for 30 minutes.

  6. Remove from heat and fold in beaten egg whites.

  7. Cool and flavor with vanilla or lemon.

  8. Fill the puffs with custard.

Ice and serve

  1. For icing, beat egg white until stiff.

  2. Gradually add powdered sugar and lemon juice.

  3. Spread icing on warm puffs.

  4. Let harden in a cool, dry place.

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 + coconuttop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together306 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Coconut + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,648 recipes

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

  3. Corn + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  4. Flour + corntop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Corn + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,927 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
Provide structure as they set, and steam from them helps the puffs rise and hollow.
Flour
Its starch gelatinises with the hot liquid and eggs to form the puff's walls.
Nut oil
Adds fat for a tender texture in the dough.
Corn-starch
Thickens the custard so it holds its shape when filled.
Coconut milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard, adding richness and flavour.

The step that matters

Drying out the dough before baking. Beating eggs into the dough must be done only when the mixture has cooled slightly, because hot dough will scramble the eggs. Stirring until the dough pulls away from the pan drives off moisture so the eggs can set and the puffs can rise hollow.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, egg, sugar, corn, coconut, milk):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, egg, sugar, corn, coconut, milk. 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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