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Dessert

Cream Puffs

Cream puffs are pastry shells filled with whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Cream Puffs

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the dough

  1. In a saucepan, bring the water to a boil and add the butter.

  2. Once boiling, add the flour and stir until it forms a smooth paste that leaves the sides of the saucepan clean.

  3. Let the mixture cool, then add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.

  4. Stir in the baking powder.

Bake and fill

  1. Drop spoonfuls of the mixture onto baking sheets, spaced apart.

  2. Bake at 300°F (150°C) for about 30 minutes, or until the puffs feel very light.

  3. Once cooled, remove the soft inside portion and fill with whipped cream.

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. Flour + buttertop 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. Flour + creamtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

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

All-purpose flour
Its starch cooks into a paste that gives the dough enough structure to hold its shape.
Eggs
They add structure and moisture, and their proteins set so the puffs hold their hollow shape.
Butter
Melted into the boiling water, it adds richness and tenderness to the dough.
Baking powder
It releases gas in the oven, helping the puffs rise and open up.

The step that matters

Cool the mixture before adding the eggs. Eggs added to a very hot paste can scramble or thin the dough, so it may not hold its structure or puff properly. Letting it cool first keeps the dough thick enough to trap steam and rise.

“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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