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Dessert

Cream Raspberry Pie

A puff pastry pie filled with raspberries and topped with a creamy milk and egg white mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Cream Raspberry Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA good oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a good oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the pie

  1. Line a pie dish with puff pastry and fill it with raspberries, sweetened with ½ cup sugar.

  2. Cover with a pastry crust, leaving the edges unpinched, and rub the edge of the lower crust with butter.

Make the cream

  1. While baking, heat 1 cup of milk with a pinch of baking soda.

  2. Stir in 2 teaspoons of corn starch mixed with cold milk and 1 tablespoon of sugar, cooking for 3 minutes.

  3. Remove from heat and beat in the frothed egg whites until creamy; let cool.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven.

  2. Once the pie is out of the oven, lift the top crust and pour in the cream mixture.

  3. Replace the crust and let it cool, then sift sugar on top before serving.

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. Sugar + milktop 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. Sugar + corntop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,168 recipes

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

Sugar and milk 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

Raspberries
Provide the fruit filling, with sugar adding sweetness and balancing their tartness.
Corn starch
Thickens the milk mixture into a smooth, creamy custard when heated.
Egg whites
Whipped into the mixture to add lightness and help it set as it cools.
Rich milk
Forms the base of the cream, adding richness and moisture to the custard.
Puff pastry for pie crust
Forms the flaky crust that encloses the filling and holds the cream.

The step that matters

Adding the egg whites off the heat. Egg whites can scramble or turn grainy if they meet very hot liquid, so they are beaten in after removing the pan from the heat. Gentle folding keeps the cream smooth and light.

“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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