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Dessert

Cream Puffs

A puff pastry shell filled with a sweet milk and sugar custard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 paste

  1. In a saucepan, combine butter and boiling water; bring to a boil.

  2. Quickly add flour and salt, stirring well.

  3. Remove from heat and let cool slightly.

  4. Add eggs one at a time, beating thoroughly after each addition.

Bake and fill

  1. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 30 to 40 minutes.

  2. Once cool, split open the side and fill with whipped cream or the following filling.

  3. For the filling, mix scalded milk, sugar, flour, eggs, salt, vanilla, and butter in a saucepan.

  4. Cook over medium heat until thickened, then cool before using.

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 richness and tenderness to the dough.
Eggs
Provide structure and, as they set, help the puffs rise and hold their hollow shape.
Flour
Gelatinizes with the hot liquid to form the dough that holds the puff's structure.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to the filling.
Scalded milk
Forms the liquid base of the filling, adding richness and body.

The step that matters

Adding the eggs one at a time. Beating each egg fully into the dough before adding the next creates a smooth, glossy paste. Eggs added too fast can leave it slack or curdled, so the puffs may not rise well.

Swap the vanilla

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