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Cup Puffs

A steamed dessert of batter-filled cups topped with cherries and served with a vanilla-flavored sauce.

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 ↓

Cup Puffs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cups

  1. Butter the cups.

  2. Place 2 tablespoons of cherries in the bottom of each cup.

Make the batter

  1. Mix the sugar, milk, eggs, baking powder, and salt in a bowl.

  2. Add enough flour until the batter can drop from a spoon.

  3. Fill the cups half full with batter.

  4. Cover the cups closely.

Steam and make the sauce

  1. Steam the cups for 1 hour.

  2. Mix 1 tablespoon of flour with 1 pint of milk.

  3. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  4. Cream together the sugar and butter.

  5. Pour the boiling milk mixture into the creamed sugar and butter without boiling again.

  6. Flavor the sauce with vanilla.

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. Milk + buttertop 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. Flour + buttertop 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

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as they set during steaming.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the cups rise and become light.
Flour
Forms the batter's structure and thickens the sauce.
Butter
Creamed with sugar to add richness and a smooth, tender sauce.
Milk
Adds moisture to the batter and forms the body of the sauce.

The step that matters

Pour the boiling milk mixture without boiling again. The flour in the sauce thickens when it gets hot; pouring the boiling milk into the creamed sugar and butter combines them smoothly, while reboiling after mixing can scorch the milk or make the sauce lumpy or uneven.

Swap the vanilla

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

  1. Vanillathe original
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Coconutfits less well

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