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Dessert

Boston Cream Cakes

A sweet, layered cake with a butter and flour base, filled with a corn flour custard and topped with vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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

Oven, in the book's wordsA sharp oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a sharp oven”. The 400°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the paste

  1. Heat the water and add the butter.

  2. When it boils, stir in the sifted flour quickly.

  3. Remove from heat and stir until smooth.

  4. Add the egg yolks one at a time, beating well after each addition.

  5. Cool slightly and mix in the vanilla essence.

  6. Beat the egg whites until frothy.

  7. Gently fold the beaten egg whites into the mixture until well combined.

Bake and split

  1. Prepare a baking tin lined with slightly greased paper.

  2. Drop spoonfuls of the mixture onto the tin, leaving space between each.

  3. Bake in a hot oven (400°F / 200°C) for about 15 minutes.

  4. Once baked, use a heated knife to split the cakes open on one side.

Make the filling

  1. For the filling, boil the corn flour with the milk and cream.

  2. Beat in the eggs, sugar, and vanilla essence.

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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  4. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

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

Eggs
Provide structure and lift as they set, and add richness to the batter and filling.
Pastry flour
Forms the structure that holds the batter together as it bakes.
Butter
Adds richness and a tender crumb to the batter.
Corn flour
Thickens the milk and cream into a set, smooth filling when boiled.
Milk and cream
Supply moisture and a creamy texture to the filling.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to the filling.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Folding gently keeps the air beaten into the whites, which is what lifts the batter in the oven. Stirring hard would deflate the whites and leave the cakes dense.

“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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