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Boston Cream Cakes

Boston Cream Cakes are buttered cakes filled with custard and flavored with vanilla or lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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 paste

  1. In a large saucepan, combine ½ cup butter and 1 cup hot water. Heat until boiling.

  2. Add 1 pint sifted flour all at once, and mix well with a vegetable masher until smooth.

  3. Remove from heat and let cool slightly.

  4. Add 5 beaten eggs (yolks first, then whites), ½ teaspoon baking soda, and 1 teaspoon salt.

Bake and fill

  1. Drop spoonfuls of the mixture onto buttered baking sheets, spacing them about 2 inches apart.

  2. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for about 15 minutes until done and cool.

  3. Once cool, cut a slit in the side of each cake.

  4. Fill the slit with custard.

Make the custard

  1. To make the custard, heat ⅔ pint milk in a double boiler with ⅓ pint milk.

  2. In a bowl, mix 2 eggs, 1 cup sugar, and 3 tablespoons flour (or ½ cup corn‑starch).

  3. When the milk is nearly boiling, pour in the egg mixture and stir briskly for 3 minutes until thickened.

  4. Remove from heat. Add 1 teaspoon butter and flavor with vanilla or lemon.

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
Provide structure and richness, setting the custard and binding the choux paste.
Flour
Forms the structure of the paste and thickens the custard.
Butter
Adds fat and tenderness to the paste and richness to the custard.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard, adding richness and body.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to the custard.

The step that matters

Stir the custard while it thickens. Constant stirring keeps the egg proteins and starch from clumping or scorching on the bottom of the pan, giving a smooth, evenly thickened custard.

Swap the vanilla

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

  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, sugar, milk. 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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