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Dessert

Cheese Puffs

Cheese Puffs are small baked pastries made from butter, flour, cheese, eggs, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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

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.

Prepare the paste

  1. Mix flour with a little water to form a smooth paste.

  2. Add cheese, salt, and pepper to the mixture.

  3. Combine the remaining water and butter in a saucepan.

  4. Bring the mixture to a boil.

Make the dough

  1. Add the flour mixture to the boiling water and cook for 3 minutes, stirring constantly.

  2. Remove from heat and let cool.

  3. Beat in the eggs one at a time, mixing for at least 10 minutes.

Bake and serve

  1. Lightly butter a baking pan.

  2. Drop heaping teaspoonfuls of the mixture onto the pan, leaving space between each puff.

  3. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 20 minutes.

  4. Serve hot.

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 + peppertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,861 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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
Set the structure and, as their moisture turns to steam, help the puffs rise.
Flour
Its starch thickens with the hot water, forming the structure that holds each puff.
Water
Turns to steam in the oven, lifting the puffs as they bake.
Butter
Adds fat, which tenderises the dough and adds richness.
Cheese
Adds savoury flavour and a little fat to the dough.

The step that matters

Let the paste cool before adding the eggs. Eggs added to a very hot paste can scramble instead of blending smoothly. Beating until smooth and glossy lets the dough hold its shape and puff 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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