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Dessert

Boston Cream Pie

A custard pie with a sweet filling flavored with vanilla or lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓

Boston Cream Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA rather quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the custard

  1. Boil the milk in a saucepan.

  2. Beat the eggs in a bowl.

  3. Add sugar and ½ cup flour to the eggs; mix well.

  4. Stir the egg mixture into the boiling milk.

  5. Add butter and stir until thickened.

  6. Flavor the cream with vanilla or lemon.

Make the cake

  1. Beat 3 eggs separately in another bowl.

  2. Add 1 cup sugar, 1½ cups flour, baking powder, and 2 tablespoons milk or water to the eggs; mix well.

  3. Divide the batter in half and pour into two greased pie tins.

  4. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until golden brown.

Assemble and serve

  1. Once cooled, split each cake in half.

  2. Spread half the cream between the layers.

  3. Serve cold.

  4. Flavor the cake part the same as the custard.

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

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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
Set the custard and give the cake structure and lift.
All-purpose flour
Provides starch that thickens the cream and gives the cake its structure.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard and adds richness and moisture to the cake.
Granulated sugar
Adds sweetness and helps keep the cake tender.
Butter
Adds fat that enriches the custard and gives it a smooth texture.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the cake rises.

The step that matters

Stirring the egg mixture into the boiling milk. The flour starch and egg proteins thicken the cream as it heats. If the mixture is not stirred steadily, the eggs can scramble and leave lumps, so the custard turns grainy.

“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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