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Dessert

Eaisin Puff

A steamed puff made with eggs, butter, flour, baking powder, sugar, raisins, and sweet milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Eaisin Puff

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix the eggs and butter until well combined.

  2. Add the flour, baking powder, sugar, raisins, and milk. Stir until smooth.

Steam and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a greased ordinary brown bread steamer.

  2. Steam for 1 hour.

  3. Serve with whipped cream or cold sauce.

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 + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  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

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as the pudding sets during steaming.
Butter
Adds richness and a tender texture to the crumb.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the pudding as it cooks.
Baking powder
Releases gas that lifts the batter so the pudding rises and stays light.
Raisins
Add chewy sweetness and concentrated fruit flavour throughout the pudding.
Sweet milk
Hydrates the flour and gives the batter its liquid and soft texture.

The step that matters

Keeping the steamer at a steady simmer. Steaming cooks the batter gently with moist heat. If the water boils dry or drops to a low simmer, the pudding can cook unevenly, turn heavy, or fail to rise fully. Keeping the water topped up maintains even, consistent heat for the full hour.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Vanillafits about as well
  2. Raisinthe original
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Coconutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, flour, sugar, 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.

More raisin puff recipes

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