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Dessert

Cheese Puffs

Cheese puffs are baked dough made with butter, water, flour, cheese, salt, cayenne, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cheese are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,962 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Cheese Puffs

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the dough

  1. Heat the butter and water in a saucepan until boiling.

  2. Add the flour and grated cheese, cooking for 3 minutes while stirring well.

  3. Season with salt and cayenne, then allow the mixture to cool slightly.

  4. Add the eggs one at a time, beating each in thoroughly.

Bake and serve

  1. Drop by teaspoonfuls onto a buttered baking sheet.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for about 20 minutes.

  3. Serve hot.

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. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Cheese + eggtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,253 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, 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

Butter
Melts into the water to add richness and tenderness to the dough.
Flour
Gelatinises with the hot liquid to form the structure that holds the puffs.
Eggs
Set during baking and provide structure and lift so the puffs rise and hold their shape.
Grated cheese
Adds savoury flavour and fat, and helps the puffs brown in the oven.

The step that matters

Beating in the eggs. Each egg must be fully incorporated before the next is added, so the dough becomes smooth and glossy and can trap steam. If the eggs are added too quickly or the mixture is too hot, they can scramble or the dough can split, and the puffs may not rise well.

“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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