Nun's puffs

Nun's puffs, also called nun's farts, are a dessert pastry that originated in France under the name *pets de nonne*. The treat has since spread to French Canada, the United States, England, Spain, and Mexico. The earliest known recipe dates to the 16th century, placing it in the Renaissance rather than medieval times. It falls somewhere between a batter and a dough. Its ingredients include butter, milk, flour, sugar, eggs, and occasionally honey.

The dessert appears in an 1856 cookbook and in the *Household Encyclopedia* from 1859 (not associated with Oxford University). Recipes vary: some call for pan-frying in lard, then re-frying and baking; others bake the mixture directly. The most established method involves cooking butter, milk, and flour in a pan, adding eggs (whites last), sprinkling sugar on top, and then baking. Choux pastry, which is also cooked twice—once to prepare the paste and again to transform it into puffs—follows a similar technique. A cream filling may be added.

Descriptions of nun's puffs include "light tender morsels" that are "heavenly," as well as a "cream puff batter that bakes like a popover." Recipes for the pastry are also found in two Virginia cookbooks.

The name's origin is somewhat tangled. The lightness of deep-fried beignets is said to have inspired the French *pets de nonne* ("nun's farts"). The French Wikipedia mentions an earlier term, *paix-de-nonne* ("nun's peace"), which sounds identical, but there is no established canon that it is a historical precursor. The English term "nun's puffs" remains a mystery. A separate French-Canadian dessert, *pets de sœurs* ("farts of sisters"), is sometimes confused with nun's puffs but is actually a completely different pastry.

A related butter mixture called "nun's butter" combines butter, sugar, wine, and nutmeg. Nun's farts belong to a group of foods that reference the church, including nun's sighs, *Religieuse* (a pastry), *la religieuse* (the cheese crust at the bottom of a fondue pot), cappuccino, angel food cake, cardinal mousse, hermit's food, twelfth-night cake, scripture cake, Christmas cake, Quaker cake, Jerusalem pudding, *Jésuite*, and devil's food cake.