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Dessert

Boston Cream Cakes

A layered cake with a butter‑water batter and a custard filling made from eggs, flour, sugar, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By F. L. Gillette and Hugo Ziemann · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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 Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the shells

  1. Put half a cup of butter and one cup of hot water into a large saucepan; set on the fire.

  2. When the mixture begins to boil, turn in a pint of sifted flour at once, beat and work it well with a vegetable masher until it is very smooth.

  3. Remove from the fire, and when cool enough add five eggs that have been well beaten, first the yolks and then the whites, also half a teaspoonful of soda and a teaspoonful of salt.

  4. Drop the batter on buttered tins in large spoonfuls about two inches apart.

  5. Bake in a quick oven about fifteen minutes.

Make the custard

  1. Put two-thirds of a pint of milk over the fire in a double boiler.

  2. In a third of a pint of milk, stir the sugar, flour and beaten eggs.

  3. As soon as the milk looks like boiling, pour in the mixture and stir briskly for three minutes, until it thickens.

  4. Remove from the fire and add a teaspoonful of butter.

Fill and serve

  1. When done and quite cold, open them on the side with a knife or scissors and put in as much of the custard as possible.

  2. When cool, flavor with vanilla or lemon and fill your cakes.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

833Calories
27 gProtein
26 gFat
120 gCarbs

Counts 6 of 7 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 6 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Waternot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By F. L. Gillette and Hugo Ziemann. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. See the original page.

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 + milktop 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. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Flour + eggtop 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

Flour
Forms the starchy paste that sets into the hollow shells as they bake.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and lift so the shells puff.
Butter
Adds fat that enriches the paste and softens the crumb.
Cornstarch
Thickens the custard filling so it holds its shape when cool.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard filling.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard that sets as it thickens.

The step that matters

Stirring the custard as it thickens. Once the milk nears boiling, the starch swells and the egg proteins begin to set. Stirring briskly keeps heat even, so the custard thickens smoothly instead of lumping or curdling.

“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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