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Dessert

Mock Cream Pie

A custard pie topped with meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Mock 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.

Prepare the crust

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

  2. Line a pie plate with a rich crust and bake until golden.

Make the cream filling

  1. In a saucepan, combine milk, sugar, cornstarch, egg yolks, and vanilla.

  2. Cook over medium heat, stirring until thickened.

  3. Pour the cream mixture into the baked crust.

Top with meringue and bake

  1. In a bowl, beat egg whites until soft peaks form, then gradually add sugar until stiff peaks form.

  2. Spread the meringue over the cream filling.

  3. Bake in the oven until the meringue is light 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. 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. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  4. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, 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

Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard that sets when cooked.
Cornstarch
Thickens the cream filling as it heats, giving it a sliceable body.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the custard, adding richness and smooth texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps stabilize the egg white meringue.
Egg whites
Whipped into foam to form the light, airy meringue topping.

The step that matters

Cooking the cream filling until thickened. Cornstarch needs to reach a boil with steady stirring to fully thicken; undercooked starch leaves the filling runny, and the custard can scorch on the bottom of the pan if not stirred.

“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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