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Dessert

Raisin Puff

A steamed pastry made with eggs, butter, flour, milk, raisins, sugar, baking powder, and lemon extract.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Raisin Puff

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, cream the butter and sugar together.

  2. Add the eggs and mix well.

  3. In another bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, and raisins.

  4. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, alternating with the milk.

  5. Stir in the lemon extract.

Steam

  1. Pour the batter into cups and steam for 30 minutes.

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 they set during steaming.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the puff a tender crumb.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the puff as the batter sets.
Baking powder
Releases gas during steaming, helping the puff rise and become light.
Milk
Adds moisture and loosens the batter to a pourable consistency.

The step that matters

Alternating the dry ingredients with the milk. Adding flour in portions alongside the liquid keeps the batter smooth and prevents lumps. Overmixing once flour is added develops gluten, which can make the puff tough.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Coconutfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

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