Skip to main content
Dessert

Jealousy Puffs

A sweet baked puff made with sugar, butter, sweet cream, flour, eggs, baking soda, cream of tartar, and flavoring.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Jealousy Puffs

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. In a large bowl, cream together the sugar and butter.

  3. Add the sweet cream and mix well.

  4. In another bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, and cream of tartar.

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

  6. Beat in the eggs and add flavoring to taste.

Bake

  1. Drop spoonfuls of the batter onto a greased baking sheet.

  2. Bake for about 10-12 minutes or until golden brown.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Flour + eggtop 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
Creams with the sugar to give the puffs richness and a tender crumb.
Eggs
Add structure and help the batter bind and set as it bakes.
Baking soda
Reacts with the cream of tartar to produce gas that lifts the puffs.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the batter so it reacts with the baking soda to help the puffs rise.
Flour
Provides the main structure that sets the puffs as they bake.
Sugar
Sweetens the puffs and helps them brown as they bake.

The step that matters

Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture. Adding the flour in portions keeps the batter smooth and evenly combined. Overmixing once flour is added develops gluten, which can make the puffs 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.

You might also like

White CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesSpice CakeSpice Cake344 recipes