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Dessert

Cream Pie

A sweet pie with a milk and egg-based cream filling flavored with lemon and vanilla.

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

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 batter

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

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

  3. Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form and fold into the mixture.

Make the cream filling

  1. In a saucepan, heat the milk until scalding hot.

  2. In a separate bowl, whisk together ½ cup sugar, a pinch of salt, and 1 egg.

  3. Stir the egg mixture into the hot milk until thickened.

  4. Remove from heat and let cool, then stir in vanilla.

Assemble

  1. Spread the cream filling between two 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
Whites whipped to stiff peaks add lift, and the yolk thickens the cream filling.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the cream filling, which thickens as the egg sets in it.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the batter together.
Baking soda
Reacts with the cream of tartar to produce gas that helps the batter rise.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the batter, helping the baking soda react and stabilising the whipped whites.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps stabilise the custard.

The step that matters

Stirring the egg mixture into the hot milk. Egg proteins set at moderate heat, so adding the egg to very hot milk without stirring constantly can scramble it. Stirring while adding helps the custard thicken 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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