Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. 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 dough
Boil water and butter together.
Add flour and stir until combined.
Let the mixture cool, then add eggs one at a time, stirring until smooth.
Bake
Drop spoonfuls onto buttered pans.
Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 45 minutes.
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.
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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
- All-purpose flour
- Provides starch that gelatinises with the hot liquid to form the dough's structure.
- Eggs
- Add moisture and proteins that set during baking, helping the puffs rise and hold their shape.
- Butter
- Adds fat for tenderness and richness, and melts into the boiling water to form the base.
- Water
- Turns to steam in the oven, which pushes the dough up and creates the hollow interior.
The step that matters
Let the mixture cool before adding the eggs. If the dough is still very hot, the eggs will scramble or thin out rather than blend smoothly. Cooling to warm lets the eggs emulsify into a thick batter that holds its shape and puffs 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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