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Dessert

Boston Cream

Boston Cream is a sweet dessert made from a sugar syrup, egg whites, tartaric acid, and vanilla extract.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Boston Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Boil the sugar and water together to create a syrup.

  2. Allow the syrup to cool.

Add the egg whites and flavourings

  1. Beat the egg whites until frothy and add them to the syrup.

  2. Stir in the tartaric acid and vanilla extract.

Serve

  1. To serve, mix 1 tablespoon of the mixture with ½ glass of water and add a little baking soda while effervescing.

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 + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  3. Egg + vanillatop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together27,347 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

White sugar
Provides sweetness and the body of the syrup.
Egg whites
Beaten into a foam, they add lightness and structure to the mixture.
Tartaric acid
Adds tartness and reacts with baking soda to release bubbles.
Vanilla extract
Adds aroma and a warm vanilla flavour.

The step that matters

Adding baking soda while effervescing. Baking soda reacts with an acid such as tartaric acid to release carbon dioxide gas. Adding it too quickly or in too large an amount can cause the mixture to foam over and lose its fizz, so add it a little at a time.

“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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