Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓
Cream Pie
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Make the cake layers
Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Beat the egg whites and yolks separately until well combined.
Add the sugar to the beaten eggs.
Sift in the flour with the baking soda and cream of tartar.
Pour the mixture into four pie tins.
Bake until golden.
Make the custard
Heat 1 pint of milk in a dish placed in hot water.
Rub the cornstarch smoothly with a little milk.
Add the eggs and sugar.
Stir into the hot milk.
Flavor the custard to taste.
Let it cool.
Assemble
Spread the cooled custard between two layers of the baked crust.
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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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Cream + milktop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together29,399 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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
- Forms the structure of the baked layers as its starch sets during baking.
- Eggs
- Provide structure and richness to the layers and thicken the custard as they set with heat.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the layers and custard and helps them brown in the oven.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acid in cream of tartar to produce gas that lifts the batter.
- Cream of tartar
- Acidifies the batter, helping the baking soda react and stabilizing the beaten egg whites.
- Milk
- Provides the liquid base of the custard and adds richness and body.
The step that matters
Stirring the eggs into the hot milk. Eggs thicken when heated, but if they meet very hot milk too quickly they can scramble. Stirring constantly while adding them, and keeping the custard below a hard boil, gives a smooth, thickened result.
“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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