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Dessert

German Puff's

A small baked pudding made from a milk, water, butter, flour, and egg batter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

German Puff's

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Combine the milk, water, and butter in a saucepan.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  3. Stir in the flour quickly while the mixture is boiling.

  4. Stir over heat until the batter is smooth.

  5. Remove the batter from heat.

  6. Beat the eggs.

  7. Stir the beaten eggs into the batter until well mixed.

Bake and serve

  1. Butter small pudding cups.

  2. Half fill the cups with the batter.

  3. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 20 minutes.

  4. Turn out the puffs onto a dish.

  5. Serve with sugar or syrup.

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 + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Flour and butter 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

Flour
Forms the starch structure that holds the batter and lets the puffs rise and set.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, and their moisture turns to steam that lifts the puffs.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and flavor, and melts into the boiling liquid.
Milk
Adds moisture, richness, and browning from its milk sugars and proteins.

The step that matters

Stir the flour into the boiling liquid quickly. Adding flour all at once while the liquid boils lets starch gelatinize evenly and prevents lumps. Stirring over heat then dries the batter so it can hold its shape and rise when baked.

“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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