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Dessert

Cream Oakes—boston Cream Cakes

A baked cake with a butter, flour, water, eggs, milk, sugar, corn starch, and vanilla cream filling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Cream Oakes—boston Cream Cakes

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 choux dough

  1. Boil the butter and water together.

  2. Stir in the flour while boiling.

  3. Let the mixture cool.

  4. Add the beaten eggs.

  5. Place a large spoonful in muffin rings.

Bake and make the cream

  1. Bake for twenty minutes at 400°F (200°C).

  2. Combine milk, sugar, and one egg mixed with corn starch and butter in a saucepan. Boil for a few moments.

  3. Cool the mixture. Add vanilla.

Assemble

  1. Open the cakes.

  2. Fill them with the 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. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

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

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

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

  4. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Corn + vanillatop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,943 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Flour
Forms the starch structure of the dough that holds the cakes' shape.
Eggs
Add structure and help the cakes puff and set as they bake.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness to the dough and to the cream.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the cream and adds richness.
Corn starch
Thickens the cream so it sets when boiled.

The step that matters

Boil the butter and water together, then stir in the flour while boiling.. The dough must be fully boiling when the flour goes in so the starch swells and cooks into a smooth paste. Under-cooked dough can stay wet and fail to rise.

“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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