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Cream Puffs

Cream puffs are light pastry shells made from a dough of water, butter, flour, eggs, and baking soda, 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 hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the dough

  1. Boil water and butter together.

  2. Slowly add flour while boiling to avoid lumps.

  3. Stir thoroughly and let cool.

  4. Add beaten eggs and dissolved baking soda.

Bake and serve

  1. Drop mixture onto a buttered pan, size of a walnut, three inches apart.

  2. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for over 20 minutes without opening the oven for the first 10 minutes.

  3. If the oven is too hot, reduce the heat instead of opening the door.

  4. Let the puffs cool completely before cutting them open with scissors and filling with 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 + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

Eggs
Provide structure and leaning, so the puffs rise and set into hollow shells.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and softens the dough for a tender texture.
All-purpose flour
Forms the starch and gluten framework that holds the puffs' shape.
Water
Creates the steam that lifts the dough and expands the puffs in the oven.
Baking soda
Helps the puffs rise and brown during baking.

The step that matters

Do not open the oven during the first 10 minutes of baking. Opening the door early lets steam and heat escape before the walls set, so the puffs can collapse instead of rising into hollow shells.

“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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