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Cream Puffs

Cream puffs are small baked pastries filled with a sweet milk-based custard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Cream Puffs

Oven, in the book's wordsA rather quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the choux paste

  1. Combine 1 pint milk, 1 ounce sugar, and 4 ounces butter in a saucepan. Heat until boiling.

  2. Remove from heat and stir in 9 ounces flour until a smooth, stiff paste forms. Let cool in an earthen bowl.

  3. Once nearly cold, stir in 8 eggs one at a time until a smooth, soft paste is achieved.

Bake the puffs

  1. Using a tablespoon, drop the paste onto greased and floured baking pans, spacing them 2 inches apart.

  2. Brush the tops with beaten egg yolks mixed with a little water.

  3. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) until golden and firm.

Make the filling and serve

  1. Once cooled, cut a slit in the side of each puff to fill.

  2. For the filling, combine 1 pint milk, 3 eggs, 3 ounces sugar, and 2 ounces flour in a pan. Make a smooth paste with some milk and then mix all ingredients together.

  3. Heat while stirring until thickened, then cool and flavor with 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. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

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

  3. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + vanillatop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,241 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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
Add structure and richness, and help the paste puff and set when baked.
Flour
Forms the starch and gluten framework that holds the puffs and filling together.
Butter
Adds fat and tenderness to the paste.
Milk
Provides liquid that turns to steam in the oven, helping the puffs rise.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the crust brown.

The step that matters

Bake until golden and firm. Steam from the paste's moisture lifts the puffs, but if they are pulled before the starch and egg set and the crust dries, they collapse as they cool.

Swap the vanilla

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

  1. Vanillathe original
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Coconutfits less well

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