Skip to main content
Dessert

Cream Puffs

A baked pastry filled with a sweet milk and egg custard.

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

Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

Cream 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.

Make the shell

  1. Pour boiling water over the butter in a saucepan and bring to a boil.

  2. Add the flour and let the mixture boil for 5 minutes, stirring constantly.

  3. Remove from heat and let it cool slightly.

  4. Add the eggs (do not beat them).

  5. Beat the mixture for 10 minutes.

  6. Add the baking soda.

  7. Bake in gem pans at 400°F (200°C) for 30 minutes.

Make the filling

  1. Mix the milk, eggs, and sugar in a saucepan and boil the mixture for 5 minutes.

  2. Flavor the filling to your taste.

  3. Let the filling cool before filling the puffs.

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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + sugartop 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
Melts into the water to add fat and richness to the dough.
Flour
Cooks with the liquid and eggs to form the structure of the puff dough.
Eggs
Add structure and help the dough puff and set as it bakes.
Baking soda
Releases gas to help the shells rise and lighten.
Milk
Provides liquid and richness for the filling.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to the filling.

The step that matters

Add the eggs without beating them. Eggs must be stirred into the hot, cooled dough gradually so it stays smooth and holds air. Beating them in directly can break down the dough's structure, and the shells may not puff properly.

“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.

More cream puffs recipes

Boston 12Chocolate 3 See all 281 →

You might also like

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