Skip to main content
Dessert

★ Cream Filling

A thickened milk and sugar mixture used as a filling for pies.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Evora Bucknum Perkins · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 Filling

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Combine 1 cup milk, ⅓-½ cup sugar, 2¼ tablespoons, ¼ cup flour, 1 egg or 2 yolks, or 1 egg and yolk of another, and ½ teaspoon vanilla.

  2. Mix sugar and flour dry.

  3. Pour boiling milk over the dry mixture.

  4. Boil the mixture.

  5. Turn over beaten eggs, stirring.

  6. Return to fire and heat until creamy but do not boil.

  7. Set dish at once into cold water.

  8. Add flavoring.

Variations

  1. For Washington Pie, use ½ tablespoon less flour and add ¼ cup cream or a small piece of butter to the milk.

  2. If desired, use ½ cup flour and add coconut for a coconut cake.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

884Calories
28 gProtein
31 gFat
121 gCarbs
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

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

By Evora Bucknum Perkins. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. Butter + creamtop 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. Milk + flourtop 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

Milk
Forms the liquid base that the custard thickens and sets into.
Flour
Thickens the mixture so it sets into a creamy, spoonable filling.
Eggs
Egg proteins set on heating, giving the filling body and richness.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps keep the custard smooth and tender.

The step that matters

Return to fire and heat until creamy but do not boil. Egg yolks and whole eggs thicken with gentle heat, but if the custard boils, the proteins can curdle and turn grainy. Stopping at a creamy stage keeps the filling 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.

More cream filling recipes

Chocolate 21Whipped 17Ice 15Cake 11Sour 6Almond 5 See all 61 →

You might also like

White CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesSpice CakeSpice Cake344 recipes