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Dessert

Jam Puffs

A puff pastry filled with jam or jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Jam 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).

  2. Separate the egg yolks and whites, beating the whites until stiff.

  3. Cream the butter and sugar together.

  4. Strain the yolks into the butter and sugar mixture and beat well.

Make and bake the puffs

  1. Gently fold in the beaten egg whites and then the flour last.

  2. Drop large spoonfuls onto a baking tin, ensuring they are all the same size and do not touch.

  3. Bake for 15 minutes.

Fill and serve

  1. Cut each puff open, leaving about an inch uncut for a hinge.

  2. Fill with jelly or jam and sprinkle with fine sugar.

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 + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Flour and butter 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
Whites are beaten to trap air, giving the puffs lift and a light, airy structure.
Hecker's prepared flour
Provides the starch and structure that sets the puffs as they bake.
Butter
Creamed with sugar to add richness and tenderness to the puffs.
Sugar
Creamed with butter to add sweetness and help create a tender crumb.
Sweet jam or jelly
Fills the opened puffs, adding sweetness and fruity flavour.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Beaten whites hold trapped air that gives lift. Folding gently keeps that air in; stirring or overmixing deflates the batter and produces flat, dense puffs.

“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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