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Dessert

Boston Velvet Cake

A buttery cake with almond topping, made with eggs, flour, sugar, butter, and baking powder.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and almond are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,673 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Boston Velvet Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter and gradually add the sugar while beating constantly.

  2. Add the yolks of the eggs.

  3. Mix and sift the flour, baking powder, and salt.

  4. Add the dry mixture alternately with the cold water to the butter mixture.

  5. Cut and fold in the lightly beaten egg whites.

Bake

  1. Turn the mixture into a well-buttered shallow cake pan.

  2. Sprinkle the shredded almonds over the top.

  3. Bake for 35 minutes in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C).

  4. This cake should not be frosted.

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. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Corn + almondtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together485 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + corntop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air and add richness and a tender crumb.
Eggs
Yolks enrich and bind the batter; whites, folded in, lighten it and help it rise.
Flour
Provides the structure that sets as the cake bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the cake rises in the oven.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps tenderize the crumb when creamed with butter.
Corn starch
Softens the flour's gluten, giving the cake a finer, more delicate texture.

The step that matters

Fold in the beaten egg whites. Folding gently keeps the air beaten into the whites. Stirring hard would deflate the batter, and the cake would bake up dense and flat instead of light.

“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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