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Dessert

Irish Puffs

A sweet almond pastry baked in a moderate oven, dusted with powdered sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,679 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓

Irish Puffs

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the filling

  1. Pound sweet and bitter almonds together, but not too finely.

  2. In a bowl, mix the pounded almonds with powdered sugar and beaten egg whites until well combined.

Fill and bake

  1. Line patty pans with paste and fill them with the almond mixture.

  2. Dust the tops thickly with powdered sugar.

  3. Bake in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C) until light brown.

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. Almond + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  2. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  3. Almond + eggtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Sweet almonds
Provide the main body and flavour of the filling.
Bitter almonds
Add a stronger, more aromatic almond flavour to the filling.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps form a light crust on top.
Egg whites
Bind the almond mixture and help it puff and set in the oven.

The step that matters

Bake until light brown. Baking only until light brown keeps the puffs moist and tender inside. Overbaking dries the almond mixture and darkens the sugar too quickly, making the tops bitter.

Swap the almond

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

  1. Pecansfits about as well
  2. Almondthe original
  3. Chestnutfits about as well
  4. Milletfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg. 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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