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Dessert

Boston Cream Cakes

A cake made from butter, water, flour, eggs, baking soda, and milk, topped with a custard cream.

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 ↓

Boston Cream Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick 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 in the water.

  2. Stir in the flour while boiling.

  3. Remove from heat and let cool.

  4. Add the eggs and baking soda to the mixture.

  5. Drop spoonfuls onto buttered baking sheets.

  6. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 15 minutes.

  7. Make a hole in the side of each cake.

Make the cream

  1. For the cream, beat together the sugar, eggs, and flour.

  2. Stir in the milk while boiling until it thickens to custard consistency.

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

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

  4. Butter + flourtop 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
Add structure and richness, and help the dough puff and set as it bakes.
All-purpose flour
Provides the starch that gives the dough and cream their body.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the dough and helps it stay tender.
Milk
Provides the liquid that thickens with the eggs and flour into a custard.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps give the cream a smooth texture.
Baking soda
Helps the cakes rise and brown during baking.

The step that matters

Stir in the milk while boiling until it thickens to custard consistency. Egg proteins and starch thicken the cream as it heats. If it is undercooked the custard stays thin, and if it overheats or boils too hard the eggs can scramble and make it grainy.

Swap the vanilla

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, egg, milk, sugar. 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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