Why it works: Milk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Cream Pie
Ingredients
Directions
Make the filling
Boil the milk in a saucepan.
Beat the eggs in a bowl, then add the sugar and flour, mixing well.
When the milk begins to boil, stir in the egg mixture, stirring continuously until thickened.
Flavor the mixture with lemon or your choice of flavoring.
Prepare and bake the crusts
Prepare the pie crust for three pies and roll it out to cover the pie plates.
Bake the crusts until golden brown, then remove from the oven.
Fill and serve
While the crusts are warm, separate the edges with a knife, lift the top crust, and fill with the cream mixture.
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.
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together19,053 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together30,404 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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
- Thicken the milk mixture as they set with heat, giving the filling structure.
- Flour
- Thickens the custard filling so it holds its shape when cut.
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base of the custard filling.
- White sugar
- Sweetens the filling and helps balance the eggs and flour.
The step that matters
Stirring the egg mixture into the boiling milk. Adding the egg mixture too fast or without constant stirring can scramble the eggs into lumps. Steady stirring spreads the heat evenly so the starch and egg thicken into a smooth custard.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, egg, sugar, flour):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Figfits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg, sugar, flour. 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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