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Dessert

For Two Pies

A pie with a creamy filling made from milk, sugar, corn starch, eggs, and optional chocolate, baked in puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Braun, Emil · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 6,955 recipes mention both. Both carry hexanal, which smells green, grassy. The science ↓

For Two Pies

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Boil one quart of milk with one-half pound of sugar (one cup) until boiling.

  2. Stir in four tablespoonfuls of corn starch mixed with two or three eggs and one teaspoonful of any extract; add a little butter if desired; optionally add grated lemon or orange peel or two ounces of chocolate.

Bake the crust

  1. Line a pie dish with American puff pastry, dust well with cracker dust or flour.

  2. Press another same-size pie dish on top of the pastry and set in the oven.

  3. When about half done, take the top dish off and bake until done.

Finish and serve

  1. Pour in cream and set aside to cool.

  2. Beat only the whites of three eggs to a stiff froth; mix into it light, one small cup of sifted powdered sugar; spread this over the cream and dust with a little sugar; brown in oven about three minutes.

By Braun, Emil. 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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  2. Chocolate + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Milk + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together9,128 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  4. Corn + chocolatetop 17% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together987 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together88,785 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Milk
Forms the liquid base of the cream filling.
Corn starch
Thickens the milk mixture into a smooth cream as it heats.
Eggs
Add richness and help set the cream filling.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and the beaten egg whites topping.
Chocolate
Adds flavor and color to the filling when used.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites to a stiff froth. Whites must be beaten until stiff and then folded gently with the sugar so the foam holds its volume. Overbeating can make them dry and grainy, and deflating them makes the topping flat when it browns.

“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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