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Dessert

German Cream Pie

A custard pie with a butter‑flour crust and a sweet milk filling, topped with sugar or meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

German Cream Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Make the crust

  1. Combine one-half cupful hard butter, three-fourths cupful flour, one-half saltspoonful baking powder, and one-half saltspoonful salt.

  2. Moisten the mixture with one well beaten egg.

  3. Put a little flour on a moulding board and roll the dough lightly.

  4. Oil the tin and cover the bottom with rolled dough, moisten the edges with egg.

  5. Bake for ten minutes in a moderate oven.

Make the filling

  1. For the filling, put one cupful milk in a double boiler, add six tablespoonfuls sugar, two tablespoonfuls flour, and two teaspoonfuls vanilla.

  2. Add the yolks of three well beaten eggs to the mixture.

  3. Cook until the filling thickens.

  4. Cool the filling and add it to the crust.

Finish and brown

  1. Brown the pie slightly in the oven.

  2. If a meringue is desired, do not brown until you have added the beaten whites of three eggs with two tablespoonfuls sugar on top of the pie.

  3. Then brown the pie slightly.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

845Calories
27 gProtein
26 gFat
121 gCarbs

Counts 7 of 8 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 7 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Vanilla1 tsp extract (4ml)12
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Pienot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

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. See the original page.

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 + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + vanillatop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,241 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Butter
Stays firm in the dough, creating a flaky, tender crust texture.
Flour
Provides structure to the crust and thickens the filling as it cooks.
Eggs
Bind the crust dough and thicken the custard filling when cooked.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps brown the meringue topping.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard filling, providing creaminess.

The step that matters

Cooking the filling until it thickens. Egg yolks and starch must be cooked long enough to thicken the custard; undercooked filling stays runny and may not set when cooled.

Swap the vanilla

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, milk, sugar, egg):

  1. Vanillathe original
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Coconutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, milk, sugar, egg. 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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