Skip to main content
Dessert

Small Puffs

A pastry filled with minced beef, suet, apples, currants, raisins, candied peel, spices, and wine, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 21 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Ginger and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,620 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Small Puffs

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the filling

  1. Cook and mince the beef or tongue.

  2. Mince the suet, apples, currants, and raisins separately until fine but not blended.

  3. Combine the minced ingredients with sugar, salt, ginger, allspice, coriander, cloves, nutmeg, lemon juice and rind, orange juice and rind, and candied peels.

  4. Press the mixture into cans and store in a cool, dry place.

Make the liquor

  1. Mix brandy, Madeira or sherry, and orange‑flower water in a bottle.

Assemble and bake

  1. When ready to use, cover baking pans with puff or plain pastry.

  2. Moisten the minced mixture with the wine and brandy, adding lemon juice and grated lemon.

  3. Fill the pastry with the mixture, cover with more pastry, and decorate the top.

  4. Bake in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C) for 30 minutes.

  5. Remove from tins and 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. Ginger + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Ginger + coriandertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,505 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  3. Allspice + coriandertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together393 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Apple + gingertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,424 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Currant + allspicetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,359 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl benzoate (fruity, sweet).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Suet
Adds richness and moisture, keeping the filling soft and succulent as it bakes.
Apples
Provide moisture and tartness that balance the sweetness of the sugar and raisins.
Raisins
Add sweetness and chewy body to the filling.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps preserve it.
Beef or tongue
Supplies savoury meat body and structure to the filling.
Brandy
Adds aroma and helps preserve the moist filling.

The step that matters

Moisten the minced mixture with the wine and brandy. The filling must be moist but not soggy, since too much liquid makes the pastry bake wet and underset. Adding the liquor just before filling keeps the pastry crisp while the spirits add aroma.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, apple, raisin, sugar, ginger, allspice, coriander):

  1. Limefits better
  2. Orangefits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, apple, raisin, sugar, ginger, allspice, coriander. 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.

You might also like

Orange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesApple PuddingApple Pudding256 recipesLemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesGinger CookiesGinger Cookies213 recipes