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Dessert

Indian Puffs

A baked cornmeal and milk puff with brown sugar and eggs, served in buttered cups.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Indian Puffs

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Stir cornmeal and brown sugar into boiling milk.

  2. Boil for 5 minutes, stirring constantly.

  3. Let the mixture cool, then add the beaten eggs.

Bake

  1. Pour into buttered cups and bake for 30 minutes.

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  5. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Cornmeal
Thickens the boiled milk and gives the puffs their body and structure.
Eggs
Bind the batter and set during baking, giving the puffs lift and a firm texture.
Milk
Provides the liquid that cooks the cornmeal and keeps the puffs moist.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and a mild molasses flavour, and helps browning.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool, then add the beaten eggs.. Eggs added to a very hot mixture can scramble or curdle. Cooling the mixture first lets the eggs blend smoothly, so the batter bakes to an even, tender texture.

“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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