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Dessert

Ckeam Pie

A sweet pie made with powdered sugar, flour, eggs, lemon rind, and milk, baked in a crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Ckeam 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Make the batter

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

  2. In a bowl, mix powdered sugar, flour, cream of tartar, and baking soda.

  3. Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form and set aside.

  4. In another bowl, beat the egg yolks with grated lemon rind.

  5. Fold the egg yolk mixture into the dry ingredients, then gently fold in the egg whites.

  6. Pour the mixture into a pie crust and bake for 25-30 minutes.

Make the cream

  1. For the cream, heat the milk in a double boiler until scalding hot.

  2. In a separate bowl, mix sugar, salt, and one beaten egg.

  3. Stir the egg mixture into the hot milk until thickened.

  4. Once cool, add vanilla and mix well.

Assemble

  1. Spread the cream between the baked crusts.

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. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

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

  4. Flour + vanillatop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,241 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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
Whites trap air for lift, while yolks and whole egg set into structure and thicken the cream.
Flour
Provides structure as its starches set during baking.
Cream of tartar
Stabilises the whipped egg whites so they hold their stiff peaks.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic cream of tartar to release gas, helping the batter rise.
Milk
Provides liquid and creaminess, and forms the body of the cream filling.

The step that matters

Stirring the egg into the hot milk. Egg proteins thicken gently when warmed slowly. If the mixture gets too hot or is added too quickly, the eggs can scramble and curdle, so the cream stays smooth only with gentle heat and steady stirring.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, flour, cream, egg, milk, vanilla):

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Strawberryfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, flour, cream, egg, milk, vanilla. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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