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Drink

Boston Cream

A fizzy drink made with water, sugar, egg whites, tartaric acid, lemon essence, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Boston Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Boil the water and let it cool.

  2. Beat the egg whites.

  3. In a large bowl, mix the sugar, tartaric acid, and lemon essence with the cooled water.

  4. Bottle the mixture and set it aside for later use.

Serve

  1. When ready to serve, fill a tumbler halfway with water.

  2. Add the baking soda to the water and stir.

  3. Pour in about a glassful of the prepared mixture and enjoy the effervescence.

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. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  3. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Egg whites
Whipped whites add foam and body to the drink's texture.
Tartaric acid
Provides the sharp acidity that gives the drink its tang.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid to release carbon dioxide, creating the effervescence.
White sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the acidity.

The step that matters

Adding the baking soda. Baking soda and tartaric acid react to release carbon dioxide, so the fizz depends on the soda being stirred into the water just before serving. Adding it too early lets the gas escape before the drink is poured.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Lemonthe original
  4. Datesfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, 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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