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Dessert

Cream Puffs

A baked pastry filled with a sweet milk, sugar, and flour custard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Cream Puffs

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the choux pastry

  1. Bring 1 cup hot water and ½ cup butter to a boil in a saucepan.

  2. Stir in 1 cup flour until a paste forms and cook briefly.

  3. Remove from heat and let cool slightly.

  4. Stir in 3 eggs one at a time until well combined.

  5. Drop spoonfuls of the mixture onto a buttered baking sheet.

  6. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 25 minutes until puffed and golden.

Make the filling

  1. Combine 1 cup milk, 1 cup sugar, 1 egg, and 3 tablespoons flour in a saucepan.

  2. Cook until thickened, then add flavoring.

Fill and serve

  1. Fill the puffs with the prepared filling after they have cooled.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

Eggs
Set the choux paste structure and help the puffs rise and hold their shape.
Flour
Forms the starch paste that gives the choux dough its structure.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the choux dough, contributing tenderness.
Milk
Provides liquid and body to the filling, which thickens as its starch cooks.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to the filling and balances its flavor.

The step that matters

Stir in the eggs one at a time until well combined. Each egg must be fully incorporated before the next is added so the paste becomes smooth and glossy. Adding eggs too fast or to paste that is too hot can scramble them or leave the dough too loose to puff properly.

“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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