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Custard Puffs

Custard puffs are steamed pastries filled with a sweet milk and raisin custard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Custard Puffs

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Cream butter and sugar together in a bowl.

  2. Add eggs and mix well.

  3. Stir in sweet milk and raisins.

  4. Combine flour and baking powder in a separate bowl.

  5. Gradually add dry ingredients to wet mixture, stirring until smooth.

Steam and serve

  1. Pour batter into buttered cups.

  2. Steam cups for 30 minutes.

  3. Serve 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. Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 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 tenderness by coating flour and creaming air into the batter.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as they set during steaming.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the puffs as its starches set with heat.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the puffs rise and become light.
Raisins
Add chewy pockets of sweetness and moisture throughout the puffs.

The step that matters

Gradually add dry ingredients to wet mixture, stirring until smooth. Adding flour slowly and stirring only until smooth keeps the batter from becoming overworked. Overmixing develops gluten, which can make the puffs tough rather than light.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Vanillafits about as well
  2. Raisinthe original
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Coconutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, milk, flour, 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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