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Dessert

Raisin Puffs

A steamed batter of butter, sugar, eggs, flour, baking powder, and raisins, served with sweetened whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and raisin 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 ↓

Raisin Puffs

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together in a bowl.

  2. Add the eggs and mix well.

  3. Combine the flour and baking powder in another bowl.

  4. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture.

  5. Fold in the chopped raisins.

Steam and serve

  1. Pour the batter into small cups and steam for 30 minutes.

  2. Serve with whipped cream sweetened with a little sugar and vanilla.

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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Egg + flourtop 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

Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air and give the puffs a tender, rich crumb.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and moisture to the puffs.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the batter as it sets during steaming.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the puffs rise and turn light.
Raisins
Add pockets of sweetness and chew throughout the puffs.

The step that matters

Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture. Adding flour in portions keeps the batter smooth and evenly mixed, while overmixing once the flour is in develops gluten and can make the puffs dense and tough.

“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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