Name: Mother Fay’s Cream Pies
Ingredients: 1 quart of cream; 1½ cups of sugar; 2 egg whites, well beaten; 2 cups of stoned raisins; nutmeg; pastry for lining the dish

Why it works: Raisin and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,377 recipes. Both carry alpha-terpineol, which smells lilac, floral. The science ↓

Mother Fay’s Cream Pies

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).
In a bowl, stir together the cream, sugar, egg whites, raisins, and nutmeg until well combined.
Line a large deep pudding dish with pastry, ensuring it is not too short.

Assemble and bake

Pour the cream mixture into the lined dish, wetting the crust around the edge.
Add the upper crust, prick it to allow steam to escape.
Bake slowly until set, then let it cool 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.

Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,377 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).
Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Cream + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,920 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,481 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Egg + nutmegtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together24,744 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Egg and nutmeg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 24,744 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

Cream: Forms the rich, custard-like body that sets as it bakes.
Egg whites: Help the filling set and bind it into a sliceable texture.
Sugar: Sweetens the filling and adds to its tender, soft set.
Raisins: Add chewy sweetness and concentrated fruit flavor throughout the filling.

The step that matters

Bake slowly until set. Gentle, low heat lets the egg whites and cream coagulate evenly without curdling or becoming grainy. Rushing with high heat can cause the filling to weep, toughen, or puff and crack before it has properly set.

Swap the raisin

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

Vanillafits better
Raisinthe original
Lemonfits about as well
Figfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, sugar, egg, nutmeg. 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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Mother Fay’s Cream Pies