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Dessert

Cream Pie

A custard pie with milk, sugar, cornstarch, eggs, butter, vanilla, optional coconut, topped with whipped egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and coconut match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,294 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Cream Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Scald 1½ cups of milk with ⅔ cup of sugar in a saucepan.

  2. Dissolve 3 teaspoons of cornstarch in ½ cup of milk.

  3. Add 2 beaten egg yolks to the cornstarch mixture.

  4. Pour the cornstarch mixture slowly into the boiling milk, stirring constantly.

  5. Add 1 tablespoon of butter and boil until thick and smooth.

  6. Stir in 1 teaspoon of vanilla and ½ cup of shredded coconut if desired.

Assemble and bake

  1. Pour the filling into a baked pie crust.

  2. Beat 2 egg whites with 2 tablespoons of sugar until stiff peaks form.

  3. Spread the egg whites over the pie filling and return to the oven to brown.

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 + coconuttop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,294 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Milk + coconuttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,648 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

Egg yolks
Thicken the custard and enrich its texture as they set with heat.
Cornstarch
Thickens the milk mixture into a smooth, sliceable custard when boiled.
Egg whites
Whipped with sugar to form a stable meringue topping that browns in the oven.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard that thickens with cornstarch and egg yolks.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and helps stabilize the whipped egg white meringue.

The step that matters

Pour the cornstarch mixture slowly into the boiling milk, stirring constantly. Cornstarch can clump if added too fast or left unstirred. Constant stirring disperses the starch so the custard thickens evenly and stays smooth.

Swap the coconut

The recipe marks coconut as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, sugar, egg, butter, vanilla):

  1. Figfits about as well
  2. Peachfits about as well
  3. Coconutthe original
  4. Strawberryfits about as well

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

More cream pie recipes

Lemon 54Boston 44Sour 38Coconut 24Whipped 20Orange 18 See all 378 →

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