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Dessert

Cream Puffs

Cream puffs are puffed pastries filled with a sweet custard made from milk, egg, sugar, cornstarch, salt, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Cream Puffs

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.

Make the choux dough

  1. Combine butter and boiling water in a saucepan; bring to a boil.

  2. Gradually add flour, stirring continuously; cook for 2 minutes.

  3. Remove from heat, let cool slightly; add eggs one at a time, beating until smooth.

  4. Stir in baking soda.

Bake

  1. Drop spoonfuls of the mixture onto a buttered baking sheet.

  2. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 30 minutes until puffed and golden.

Make the filling

  1. Heat milk until nearly boiling.

  2. Whisk in beaten egg, sugar, cornstarch, salt, and vanilla until smooth.

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. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

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

  3. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + vanillatop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,241 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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
Melts into the boiling water to add fat and richness to the dough.
All-purpose flour
Its starch gelatinizes with the liquid to form the structure that holds the puffs.
Eggs
Add structure and moisture, and their proteins set as the puffs bake.
Baking soda
Releases gas in the dough to help the puffs rise and open.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the filling, adding richness and creaminess.
Cornstarch
Thickens the filling as it heats, giving it a smooth, sliceable body.

The step that matters

Adding the eggs to the dough. Eggs must be beaten in gradually, and the mixture should cool slightly first, so the dough stays smooth and thick enough to hold its shape. If the dough is too hot or too loose, the eggs can scramble and the puffs may not rise properly.

Swap the vanilla

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

  1. Vanillathe original
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Coconutfits less well

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