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Dessert

Light or German Puddings or Puffs

A light German pudding made with butter, cream, flour, sugar, eggs, and rose or orange-flower water, baked in cups.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Light or German Puddings or Puffs

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the batter

  1. Melt the butter in the cream and let it cool slightly.

  2. Mix in the flour, sugar, egg yolks, and egg whites.

  3. Add the rose or orange-flower water and stir until combined.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into buttered cups.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for half an hour.

  3. Serve immediately with white wine and sugar.

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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, 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
Adds richness and a rounded flavour, and carries fat through the batter.
Cream
Provides moisture and a soft, custard-like body once baked.
Fine flour
Gives the batter some structure so it holds its shape after baking.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help the mixture set into a tender custard when heated.
Egg whites
Add lightness and help the pudding rise and hold a delicate structure.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and contributes to gentle browning on the surface.

The step that matters

Baking the batter. Egg proteins set as they heat, so the pudding turns firm and creamy when baked just until set. Baking too long makes the eggs tighten, leaving the texture dry and rubbery.

“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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