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Cream Puffs

Cream puffs made from butter, water, flour, salt, sugar, and eggs, baked until puffed.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Cream Puffs

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the dough

  1. Boil the water and butter together.

  2. When boiling hard, add the flour all at once and stir vigorously until it forms a smooth ball and leaves the sides of the saucepan.

  3. Add the salt and sugar.

  4. When cool, add the unbeaten eggs one at a time, beating until thoroughly mixed.

Shape and bake

  1. Drop pieces the size of a walnut onto a buttered pan, spacing them three inches apart.

  2. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for about 30 minutes, starting with a hot oven and then reducing the heat.

  3. Let them dry out in the oven with the door open for about 10 minutes to prevent them from falling.

Fill and serve

  1. When thoroughly cold, cut open with scissors and fill with whipped cream or mock cream.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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
Adds fat and richness, giving the dough a tender, flavorful crumb.
All-purpose flour
Its starch sets into a firm paste that gives the puffs their structure.
Eggs
Add moisture and proteins that set during baking, helping the puffs hold their shape.
Boiling water
Turns to steam in the hot oven, which pushes the dough up into hollow puffs.

The step that matters

Adding the eggs when the dough is cool. If the dough is still hot, the eggs can scramble and the batter will not blend smoothly. Beating each egg in fully gives a glossy, stretchy dough that rises well and holds its shape.

“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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