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Dessert

German Puffs

German Puffs are a baked pastry made with flour, milk, eggs, melted Cottolene, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

German 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

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, combine flour, milk, and melted Cottolene.

  2. Beat the egg whites until stiff and fold them into the mixture.

  3. In another bowl, beat the egg yolks and add them to the mixture.

Bake and serve

  1. Grease nine cups and pour the batter evenly into them.

  2. Bake until golden brown.

  3. Serve immediately with sauce.

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 + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Flour and milk 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
Whites trapped by beating lift the batter, and yolks add richness and structure as the puffs set.
Flour
Forms the set structure that holds the puffs together as they bake.
Milk
Provides moisture and liquid that turns the flour into batter and steam for lift.
Cottolene
Adds fat that tenderizes the batter and helps browning in the oven.

The step that matters

Fold the beaten egg whites in gently. Beaten egg whites hold air that makes the puffs rise. Stirring them in vigorously knocks out that air, so the puffs bake flat and dense.

“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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