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Puffs, or Pop-overs

A light, airy bread made from sour cream, flour, eggs, baking soda, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 106,462 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Puffs, or Pop-overs

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

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

  2. In a bowl, mix the flour, baking soda, and salt.

  3. In another bowl, combine the sour cream and beaten eggs.

Make the batter

  1. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients, mixing until smooth.

  2. Pour the batter into muffin tins.

Bake

  1. Bake for about 20-25 minutes or until golden brown.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Cream + flourtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

  3. Cream + eggtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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

Eggs
Provide structure and richness, and help the batter set as it bakes.
All-purpose flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the popovers their hollow, airy structure.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour cream to release gas that helps the batter rise.
Sour cream
Adds moisture, tenderness, and a tangy acidity that reacts with the baking soda.

The step that matters

Pour the batter into muffin tins. The batter must be smooth and fairly thin so steam can lift it during baking. Opening the oven early or underbaking can cause the popovers to collapse before the structure sets.

“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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