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Dessert

Cream Pie

A baked cake with a custard filling, topped with powdered sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and milk 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 ↓

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 cake

  1. Combine water and sugar in a bowl, then add the beaten egg yolk.

  2. Mix in flour and baking powder.

  3. Fold in the beaten egg whites and flavor with vanilla or almond extract.

  4. Pour the batter into a baking tin and bake at 350°F (175°C) until golden.

Make the custard

  1. Heat milk in a double boiler for the custard.

  2. When warm, add the beaten egg yolks, sugar, butter, and flour to thicken.

  3. Once thickened, pour the custard over the beaten egg whites and flavor with vanilla.

Assemble and serve

  1. When the cake is cool, split it in half and fill with custard.

  2. Replace the top half and sprinkle with powdered sugar.

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. Vanilla + milktop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

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

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + vanillatop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,241 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
Beaten whites trap air for lift, and yolks thicken and enrich the custard.
Flour
Starch and protein build the structure of the cake and thicken the custard.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the cake rise in the oven.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps keep the cake tender and moist.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard, which sets as its proteins thicken with heat.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, silky custard texture.

The step that matters

Thickening the custard. Egg yolks and flour must be heated gently while whisking. Too little heat leaves the custard runny, and too much heat scrambles the eggs into lumps.

Swap the vanilla

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

  1. Vanillathe original
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Coconutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, flour, milk, butter. 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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