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Dessert

Boston Cream Pie

A custard-filled pie with a sweet crust, made from milk, eggs, sugar, flour, butter, and flavored with vanilla or lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

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 cream

  1. Bring 1 pint of milk to a boil in a saucepan.

  2. Beat 2 eggs in a bowl.

  3. Add 1 cup sugar to the eggs.

  4. Add ½ cup flour to the eggs.

  5. Stir the egg mixture into the boiling milk.

  6. Add 1 ounce butter to the mixture.

  7. Keep stirring until the mixture thickens.

  8. Flavor the mixture with vanilla or lemon.

Make the crust

  1. Beat 3 eggs separately for the crust.

  2. Add 1 cup granulated sugar to the crust eggs.

  3. Add 1½ cups sifted flour to the crust eggs.

  4. Add 1 teaspoon baking powder to the crust eggs.

  5. Add 2 tablespoons milk or water to the crust eggs.

  6. Divide the batter in half and pour into two medium-sized pie tins.

  7. 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 of the cream between the layers.

  3. Serve cold.

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

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + vanillatop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,241 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Eggs
Set the cream when heated and give the crust its structure and lift.
Flour
Thickens the cream and gives the sponge crust its body.
Milk
Forms the base of the cream and moistens the crust batter.
Sugar
Sweetens the cream and the crust and helps the crust brown.
Butter
Adds richness and a smoother, softer texture to the cream.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the crust batter so it rises and becomes light.

The step that matters

Keep stirring until the mixture thickens. Egg and flour mixtures can curdle or scorch on the bottom of the pan if left unattended. Constant stirring over heat keeps the cream smooth while the starch and egg proteins thicken it.

Swap the vanilla

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, egg, sugar, flour, butter):

  1. Vanillathe original
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Coconutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg, sugar, flour, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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