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Dessert

Cream Pie

A custard pie made with milk, butter, sugar, lemon, eggs, corn starch, flour, and baking powder.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Home for the Friendless (Chicago, Ill.) · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓

Cream Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Make the cream

  1. Boil nearly one pint of new milk.

  2. Beat two small tablespoons of corn starch with a little milk.

  3. Add the two eggs to the mixture.

  4. When the milk has boiled, stir this in slowly with one scant teacup of sugar, one-half cup of butter, and two teaspoons of lemon.

Make the cake

  1. For the cake, mix three eggs, one cup of white sugar, one and a half cups of flour, and one teaspoon of baking powder.

  2. Add three tablespoons of cold water to the cake mixture.

  3. Bake the cake in two pie pans in a quick oven.

Assemble

  1. While the cake is hot, split it and spread it in the cream.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

845Calories
28 gProtein
26 gFat
124 gCarbs

Counts 6 of 7 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 6 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
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12
Waternot 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.

By Home for the Friendless (Chicago, Ill.). 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 + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

  3. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Add structure and richness to both the cream and the cake as they set.
Corn starch (in the method)
Thickens the hot milk into a smooth cream that holds its shape.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, tender texture in the cream.
Sugar
Sweetens the cream and cake and softens the cake's texture.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the cake rises and becomes light.
Flour (in the method)
Provides the structure that holds the cake's crumb together.

The step that matters

Stirring the starch into the boiling milk. Corn starch thickens when heated in liquid, but it clumps if dropped in at once. Adding the mixture slowly while stirring lets each part hydrate and thicken evenly, giving a smooth cream instead of lumps.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Coconutfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, 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.

More cream pie recipes

Lemon 54Boston 44Sour 38Coconut 24Whipped 20Orange 18 See all 378 →

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