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Dessert

Cream Pie

A sweet pie with a butter‑sugar batter and a cream filling made from sweet milk, sugar, and corn starch, topped with frosted egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the crusts

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Cream together the sugar and butter.

  3. Add the sweet milk and mix well.

  4. Gradually add the flour and baking powder, stirring until combined.

  5. Divide the batter into two pie crusts.

  6. Bake the crusts until golden.

Make the filling

  1. For the filling, combine the sweet milk, sugar, and corn starch in a saucepan.

  2. Cook over medium heat, stirring until thickened.

Assemble and frost

  1. Split the baked pies open and fill with the cream filling.

  2. For the frosting, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  3. Gradually add the sugar, continuing to beat until glossy.

  4. Spread the frosting over the top of the filled pies.

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.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + corntop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + corntop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

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

Butter and flour 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

Flour
Forms the structure of the batter so the crusts hold their shape when baked.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and a rich flavor in the crust.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the crusts rise and become light.
Corn starch
Thickens the sweet milk into a smooth, sliceable cream filling.
Egg whites
Whip into a foam that gives the frosting its light, stable structure.

The step that matters

Cooking the cream filling until thickened. Corn starch only thickens once the mixture reaches a boil while stirred; undercooked filling stays runny and will not hold when the pies are split and filled.

“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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