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Cheese Puffs

Cheese puffs are baked pastries made from butter, flour, cheese, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cheese are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,962 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Cheese Puffs

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan of boiling water.

  2. Stir in the flour.

  3. Wet the mixture with a little cold water.

  4. Add the grated cheese.

  5. Cook for 3 minutes, stirring constantly.

  6. Remove from heat and let the mixture cool.

  7. Add the eggs.

  8. Beat vigorously for 15 minutes.

Bake and serve

  1. Line a baking pan with greased paper.

  2. Drop spoonfuls of the mixture onto the pan, leaving space between each.

  3. Bake until puffed and brown.

  4. Serve immediately.

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 + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Cheese + eggtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,253 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, 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 and richness to the dough.
Flour
Provides structure as the dough thickens and sets around the puffs.
Eggs
Add structure and help the puffs rise and set as they bake.
Grated cheese
Adds savory flavor and some fat to the dough.

The step that matters

Beating the eggs in. Eggs must be beaten into the cooled dough until smooth and glossy. Their proteins and water create steam and set the structure, so the puffs rise and hold their shape in the oven.

“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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