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Dessert

Boston Cake

A sweet cake made with flour, sugar, butter, eggs, cream, spices, and baked, then dusted with powdered sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Boston Cake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a large bowl, mix the flour, sugar, grated nutmeg, butter, mace, eggs, cream, and baking soda until well combined.

  3. Pour the batter into a large buttered square baking tin.

Bake and finish

  1. Bake thoroughly until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

  2. Once cool, sift powdered sugar over the cake and cut into squares.

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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Mace + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Flour
Forms the main structure that holds the cake's crumb together as it sets.
Eggs
Set with heat to bind the batter and add structure and richness.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps the surface brown during baking.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderises the crumb and gives a richer mouthfeel.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the cake soft after baking.
Baking soda
Reacts to create gas bubbles that help the cake rise.

The step that matters

Bake thoroughly until a toothpick comes out clean. Eggs and flour set only when heated through, so underbaking leaves a wet, raw centre and gummy texture. Test the middle, since the edges set first and can look done early.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Cardamomfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Clovefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, brandy, sugar, nutmeg, butter, egg, cinnamon. 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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