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Cheese Puffs

A baked cheese pastry made with grated cheese, butter, flour, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Cheese and butter 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

a dozen small cases
Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the batter

  1. Butter a dozen small paper cases or stiff writing-paper boxes.

  2. In a thick saucepan, bring ½ cup of water to a boil and add 2 tablespoons of butter.

  3. Stir in 1 tablespoon of flour and beat until the mixture pulls away from the sides of the saucepan.

  4. Remove from heat and stir in the grated cheese; let it cool slightly.

Add the eggs

  1. Beat the yolks of 3 eggs until foamy and the whites until stiff.

  2. First mix the yolks into the cheese mixture, then gently fold in the egg whites.

Bake and serve

  1. Fill the buttered cases halfway with the mixture.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C) for about 15 minutes.

  3. Serve immediately on a hot dish covered with a folded napkin.

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. Cheese + buttertop 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

Eggs
Whipped whites give the puffs lift, while yolks add richness and help bind the batter.
Dry, rich cheese
Provides the main cheesy flavour and fat, and helps set the puffs as they bake.
Flour
Thickens the water and butter mixture so it holds together as a paste.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and tenderness in the cooked paste.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Stiff whites hold the air that makes the puffs rise. Folding gently, rather than stirring, keeps that air from collapsing before the mixture reaches 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.

More cheese puff recipes

Pastry 10Pastry Bites 4Pastry Squares 4 See all 11 →

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