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Dessert

Cream Pie

A pie with a sweet cream filling made from eggs, sugar, flour, milk, butter, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Des Moines. Plymouth church. [from old catalog] · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 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

three pies

Ingredients

Directions

Bake the cakes

  1. Bake in two pie tins.

Make the cream and fill

  1. To make cream for the above, take two eggs, one cup of sugar, a half cup of flour, two-thirds of a pint of milk, and a small piece of butter.

  2. Flavor with vanilla, and put between the cakes.

  3. When cold, split them and put in the cream, made as follows.

  4. Beat all together and pour into the milk, when boiling; flavor to the taste.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

884Calories
28 gProtein
31 gFat
121 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
Cream1 tbsp (15ml) heavy51
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
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.

By Des Moines. Plymouth church. [from old catalog]. 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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Eggs
Thicken the cream as they set, giving it body and structure.
Flour
Thickens the cream and gives the cake and filling structure.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and softens the texture of the cake and cream.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the cream and adds moisture.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the cream a smoother mouthfeel.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the cakes rise and become light.

The step that matters

Pouring the beaten mixture into boiling milk. Egg thickens as it heats, so it can scramble or curdle if it meets very hot milk without stirring. Pour slowly and keep the mixture moving so it thickens smoothly into a cream.

“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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