Skip to main content
Dessert

Curd Puffs

Curd puffs are fried dough made from curd, egg yolks, cream, sweet wine, orange‑flower water, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, sugar, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Curd Puffs

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Beat the curd until smooth, then gradually mix in the egg yolks.

  2. Add the cream, sweet wine, orange-flower water, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, and sugar.

  3. Thicken the mixture with flour and mix well.

Fry and serve

  1. Roll out the dough and cut into desired shapes.

  2. Fry in hot oil until crisp and golden.

  3. Sift sugar over the puffs before serving.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Ginger + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Orange + cinnamontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,437 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Orange + gingertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,833 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Ginger + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Curd
Forms the body of the puffs and gives them a soft, tender filling.
Egg yolks
Enrich the mixture and help bind it into a smooth, rich batter.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, softening the texture of the batter.
Flour
Thickens the mixture so it holds its shape when cut and fried.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to the batter and a light sweet finish on the fried puffs.

The step that matters

Fry in hot oil until crisp and golden. If the oil is not hot enough, the puffs absorb more oil and turn greasy instead of crisp. Oil that is too hot browns the outside before the inside sets, so the puffs stay raw in the middle.

Swap the orange

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, cream, wine, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, sugar):

  1. Vanillafits about as well
  2. Lemonfits about as well
  3. Raisinfits about as well
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, cream, wine, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, sugar. 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.

You might also like

Orange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesGinger CookiesGinger Cookies213 recipesOrange Cream Rice PuddingOrange Cream Rice Pudding121 recipesOrange GelatinOrange Gelatin100 recipes