Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and 81,283 recipes mention both. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
Cieam Pie
Ingredients
Directions
Make the custard
Beat the yolks, sugar and starch together.
Bring the milk to a boil.
Stir the yolk mixture into the milk.
Add a teaspoon of butter and a pinch of salt.
Bake and finish
Bake the crust.
Fill the crust with the custard.
Bake.
Spread the whites, beaten to a stiff froth with two tablespoons sugar, over the custard.
Brown in a quick oven.
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.
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Milk + corntop 10% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together6,955 recipes
Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).
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Butter + corntop 14% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together7,345 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
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Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned 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
- Yolks thicken the custard, and beaten whites form the topping that browns in the oven.
- Corn starch
- Thickens the milk mixture into a smooth, sliceable custard as it heats.
- Sweet milk
- Forms the liquid base of the custard that the starch and yolks set into.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the custard and helps the beaten whites hold a stiff, stable froth.
The step that matters
Stir the yolk mixture into the milk. Starch thickens only when the mixture is hot enough, and eggs can curdle if they meet heat too quickly. Adding the yolks slowly while stirring keeps the custard smooth.
“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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