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Dessert

Custard Pie

A baked custard filling made with milk, corn starch, sugar, salt, and eggs in a pastry shell.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and corn are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,955 recipes. Both carry hexanal, which smells green, grassy. The science ↓

Custard Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Heat the milk in a double boiler until boiling.

  2. Line a deep pie plate with thin pastry.

Make the custard

  1. Mix the corn-starch with 2 tablespoons of milk.

  2. Stir the corn-starch mixture into the boiling milk along with the sugar and salt.

  3. Stir until slightly thickened, then pour into a bowl with well-beaten eggs.

  4. Flavor to taste, then pour the mixture into the pie plate.

Bake

  1. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until the custard is set and an inch deep.

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

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  2. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  3. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Corn + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,168 recipes

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

Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Milk
Forms the liquid base and provides most of the moisture and body of the custard.
Eggs
Set when baked, giving the custard its firm, sliceable structure.
Corn-starch
Thickens the hot milk so the custard holds its shape rather than running.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and balances the flavor of the milk and eggs.

The step that matters

Bake until just set. Eggs keep setting as the custard cools, so pulling the pie once the centre is set prevents overbaking. Overbaked egg proteins tighten, squeeze out liquid, and turn grainy or watery.

“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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