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
Ingredients
Directions
The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.
Make the dough
Boil the water and butter together.
Stir in the flour while boiling and cook for 5 minutes.
Remove from heat and let cool, then add the beaten eggs and stir to a smooth paste.
Bake the cakes
Grease a baking sheet and drop a tablespoonful of the mixture for each cake.
Rub the top of each cake with beaten egg white.
Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 20 minutes until hollow inside.
Make the cream and fill
For the cream, boil the milk.
Stir in cornstarch and the beaten egg yolks, then boil for 2 minutes.
Remove from heat, add sugar and beaten egg whites, and flavor with lemon.
Cut off the tops of the cakes and fill them with the cream.
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.
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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 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
- Flour
- Forms the starch and gluten structure that holds the paste and gives the cakes their shape.
- Eggs
- Bind the paste, add structure as they set, and enrich the cream.
- Butter
- Adds fat for tenderness and richness in the paste.
- Cornstarch
- Thickens the cream when it is heated to a boil.
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base of the cream and adds moisture.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cream.
The step that matters
Boiling the cream after adding cornstarch and yolks. Cornstarch only thickens fully once the mixture reaches a boil, so it must be boiled for the stated time. Stir constantly, because egg yolks can scramble and curdle if the mixture overheats or sits still on the heat.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, egg, flour, milk, cream, sugar):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Coconutfits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, egg, flour, milk, cream, sugar. 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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