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Boston Cream Cakes Ok Puffs

A puff pastry filled with cream, baked at 400°F for 15 minutes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Boston Cream Cakes Ok Puffs

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the dough

  1. Boil the water, milk, and butter together in a saucepan.

  2. Stir in the flour briskly until combined.

  3. Remove from heat and let cool.

  4. Add one egg at a time, stirring well after each addition.

  5. Stir in the baking soda.

Shape and bake

  1. Drop small portions onto a baking pan.

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

Fill and serve

  1. Once baked, open the puffs and fill with cream.

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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. 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

Eggs
Set the structure and help the puffs rise and hold their shape as they bake.
Flour
Forms the gluten and starch network that gives the dough its structure.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender texture in the finished puffs.
Milk and water
Provides the liquid that turns to steam in the oven, helping the puffs expand.

The step that matters

Add one egg at a time, stirring well after each addition.. The dough must be cool enough that the eggs do not cook, and each egg must be fully blended in. Properly mixed eggs give a smooth, glossy dough that rises and holds its shape 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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