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
Make the custard
Boil the milk in a saucepan.
In a bowl, beat the egg yolks and sugar together until well combined.
Add the egg mixture to the boiling milk and cook for 2 minutes.
Prepare your pie crust and pour the cream mixture into it.
Top and brown
Beat the egg whites with a little sugar until stiff peaks form.
Spread the beaten egg whites on top of the pie.
Brown the top under a broiler and flavor with vanilla.
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 + vanillatop 5% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together19,187 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).
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Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together35,032 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Flour + vanillatop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together19,241 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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 cream filling.
- Egg yolks
- Thicken the filling as they cook and give it a rich texture.
- Flour
- Stabilises the filling so it thickens without becoming grainy.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the filling and helps the egg whites hold stiff peaks.
- Egg whites
- Whip into a foam that forms the topping and browns under the broiler.
The step that matters
Cook the egg mixture in the boiling milk. Egg yolks thicken only when heated enough, but they can scramble if added too quickly or cooked too hard. Adding the mixture gradually and keeping the cooking steady gives a smooth, thick custard.
Swap the vanilla
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, egg, flour, sugar):
- Vanillathe original
- Raisinfits about as well
- Figfits less well
- Blueberryfits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg, flour, sugar. 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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