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 Cake
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.
Prepare
Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).
Make the batter
In a bowl, mix the flour, cream of tartar, and baking soda.
In another bowl, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
Add the hot water and milk to the butter mixture, then mix well.
Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients, mixing until just combined.
Flavor the batter with lemon to your taste.
Bake
Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
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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Cream + buttertop 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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Flour + buttertop 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).
Flour and butter 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
- Provides the structure that sets the crumb as the cake bakes.
- Butter
- Adds fat for tenderness and a rich texture when creamed with sugar.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the batter and, creamed with butter, traps air for a lighter crumb.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acidic cream of tartar to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
- Cream of tartar
- Provides acidity that reacts with baking soda to leaven the batter.
- Milk
- Adds moisture and helps form a smooth, pourable batter.
The step that matters
Mixing in the dry ingredients. Mixing only until just combined keeps gluten development limited, so the cake stays tender rather than tough. Overmixing after the flour goes in develops gluten and can make the crumb dense.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, cream, sugar, butter, milk):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Coconutfits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against flour, cream, sugar, butter, milk. 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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