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Dessert

Cream Corn Meal Puffs

A baked puff made from cornmeal, flour, sugar, salt, eggs, cream, milk, and baking powder.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Cream Corn Meal Puffs

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C) and grease gem pans.

  2. In a large bowl, combine cornmeal, flour, sugar, and salt.

Make the batter

  1. In another bowl, beat the egg yolks with cream and milk, then stir into the dry mixture.

  2. Beat well, then gently fold in the stiffly whipped egg whites and baking powder.

Bake

  1. Spoon the batter into the prepared gem pans and bake until puffed and golden.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  2. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Cream + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

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

Flour and milk 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

Cornmeal
Forms the main structure and gives the puffs their coarse, crumbly texture.
All-purpose flour
Adds gluten-based structure so the batter holds its shape while baking.
Eggs
Yolks enrich and bind the batter, while whipped whites trap air for lift.
Heavy cream
Adds fat and moisture, producing a tender crumb and richer flavour.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, causing the puffs to rise in the oven.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the crust brown as the puffs bake.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. The whites are whipped to hold air, which gives the puffs their lift. Stirring hard or folding roughly deflates the foam, so the puffs bake up dense instead of light. Fold gently, just until no white streaks remain.

“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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