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Dessert

Apple Puffs

Steamed apple cakes made with a batter of milk, eggs, baking powder, and apples.

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

Apple Puffs

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix milk, beaten eggs, baking powder, and salt to create a batter thicker than pancake batter.

  2. If using water, add a spoonful of melted butter to the mixture.

Fill the cups

  1. Half fill buttered cups with the chopped apples.

  2. Pour the batter into the cups until they are two-thirds full.

Steam and serve

  1. Place the cups in a steamer and steam for about one hour.

  2. Serve hot with cream and sugar or a flavored liquid sauce.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Milk + appletop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,104 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  3. Butter + appletop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the batter and help set the puffs into a firm, tender structure as they cook.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the puffs rise and become light.
Milk
Provides the liquid that turns the batter thin enough to pour and adds richness.
Apples
Add moisture and fruity flavor to the puffs as they steam.

The step that matters

Pour the batter to two-thirds full. Baking powder needs room to expand the batter as it steams. Overfilling can cause spillage, while underfilling gives less lift and a smaller puff.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, egg, butter):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg, butter. 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.

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