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Dessert

Boston Cream Cake

A baked cake made with butter, water, flour, eggs, baking soda, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Boston Cream Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Boil the butter in the water.

  2. Stir in the flour while boiling.

  3. Remove from heat and let cool for a few minutes.

  4. Gradually stir in the beaten eggs.

  5. Add the baking soda and salt.

Bake

  1. Bake for 20 to 30 minutes until golden brown.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Butter and flour 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
Its starch gelatinizes in the boiling liquid and sets to give the cake its structure.
Eggs
They set during baking to give structure and add moisture.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and richness.
Baking soda
Releases gas and raises the batter's pH, helping it rise and brown.

The step that matters

Gradually stir in the beaten eggs.. The paste must absorb the eggs slowly so it stays smooth and thick. Adding them all at once can split the mixture or make it too loose to hold its shape and rise well in the oven.

“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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