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Dessert

Dessert Puffs

Dessert puffs are baked sweet pastries made with milk, flour, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Dessert 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.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a bowl, combine the sweet milk and flour until smooth.

  3. In another bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  4. In a separate bowl, beat the egg yolks until light and fluffy.

Mix and bake

  1. Fold the egg yolks into the milk and flour mixture.

  2. Gently fold in the beaten egg whites.

  3. Pour the mixture into cups and bake until puffed and golden.

  4. Serve warm with a liquid sauce.

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 + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Eggs
Whipped whites trap air that lifts the puffs, while the yolks add richness and tenderness.
All-purpose flour
Flour sets with heat and gives the puffs their structure as they bake.
Sweet milk
Milk supplies the liquid that hydrates the flour and turns the batter into a pourable mixture.

The step that matters

Gently fold in the beaten egg whites. Whites are whipped to hold air bubbles. Vigorous stirring deflates them, so the puffs rise less and turn dense. Use a light folding motion until just combined.

“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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