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Dessert

Cream Pie

A sweet pie with a lemon-flavored cream filling baked between layers of pie crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Make the cream

  1. Scald the milk in a saucepan.

  2. In a bowl, mix cornstarch, sugar, salt, and eggs.

  3. Gradually add the scalded milk to the mixture, stirring constantly.

  4. Add lemon juice and zest, and butter; mix well.

  5. Let the cream cool nearly completely.

Bake and assemble

  1. Bake three layers of pie crust.

  2. Let the pie crust layers cool completely.

  3. Spread the cream filling between the layers of pie crust.

  4. Sift sugar over the top layer before serving.

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

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

  2. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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 of the cream filling that sets as it cools.
Cornstarch
Thickens the cream as it heats with the milk, giving it a set, sliceable texture.
Eggs
Add richness and help thicken and firm the cream filling.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and balances the sharpness of the lemon.
Lemon
Adds acidity and bright aroma from the juice and zest.
Butter
Adds fat for a smoother, richer mouthfeel in the filling.

The step that matters

Gradually add the scalded milk to the mixture, stirring constantly. Adding hot milk slowly and stirring keeps the eggs from scrambling and lets the cornstarch thicken the cream evenly without lumps.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Coconutfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, sugar, egg, 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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Lemon 54Boston 44Sour 38Coconut 24Whipped 20Orange 18 See all 378 →

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