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Dessert

Cream Pie

A lemon-flavored custard pie made with powdered sugar, flour, eggs, milk, and vanilla, layered between pie crusts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Cream Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Preheat a double boiler or set a bowl over simmering water.

  2. In a bowl, mix powdered sugar, flour, cream of tartar, and baking soda.

Make the filling

  1. Beat the eggs separately and add them to the dry mixture along with the grated lemon rind.

  2. In the double boiler, heat the milk until scalding hot.

  3. Stir in the sugar, salt, and one beaten egg until thickened.

  4. Once cool, add the vanilla extract.

Assemble

  1. Layer the cream mixture between pie crusts.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Flour + vanillatop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,241 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, 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

Eggs
Set and thicken the filling as they cook, and add richness and structure.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the filling, providing moisture and creaminess.
Flour
Thickens the mixture and gives it body as it is heated.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps soften the texture of the filling.
Cream of tartar
Reacts with baking soda to release gas, helping the mixture lighten.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in cream of tartar to produce gas for lift.

The step that matters

Thickening the egg mixture over simmering water. Eggs thicken gently at moderate heat, but overheating can make them curdle or scramble. Keeping the water at a simmer, not a boil, lets the custard set smoothly.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Strawberryfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

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

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