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Dessert

Boiled Apple Puffets

A steamed apple cake made in teacups, served hot with flavored cream and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Boiled Apple Puffets

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, beat the eggs and mix in the milk and salt.

  2. Add enough flour to thicken the mixture to a waffle batter consistency.

  3. Stir in the baking powder.

Fill and steam

  1. Fill teacups alternately with layers of batter and chopped apples.

  2. Steam the filled teacups for one hour.

  3. Serve hot with flavored cream and sugar.

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. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Milk + appletop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,104 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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
Provide structure and richness, setting the batter as it cooks.
Flour
Thickens the liquid into a batter that holds its shape while steaming.
Baking powder
Releases gas during cooking, helping the puff rise and turn light.
Milk
Adds moisture and loosens the batter to a pourable consistency.
Chopped apples
Add moisture and fruity sweetness between the batter layers.

The step that matters

Stir in the baking powder. Baking powder should be added just before cooking, since its gas release starts once it is wet and fades if the batter waits too long. Steaming promptly keeps the rise strong.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, milk, flour, cream, 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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