Skip to main content
Dessert

Cream Pie

A pie with a raisin base, sweet cream filling, and meringue topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. 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 filling

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

  2. Press the seeded raisins into the bottom and sides of a pie crust until covered.

  3. In a bowl, mix the egg yolks, sugar, sweet cream, butter, salt, and lemon flavoring.

  4. Pour the cream mixture over the raisins in the crust.

  5. Bake until set.

Top and finish

  1. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until soft peaks form, then gradually add 2 tablespoons of sugar and lemon flavoring.

  2. Spread the meringue over the baked pie and brown lightly in the oven.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  3. Walnut + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,149 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Raisin + walnuttop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together647 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  5. Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Yolks thicken the custard filling, while whites whip into the meringue topping.
Sweet cream
Adds moisture and richness to the custard filling.
Butter
Adds fat for a smoother, richer texture in the filling.
Raisins
Provide sweetness and chewy texture in the pie base.

The step that matters

Bake the filling until set. Underbaking leaves the egg-thickened custard runny, while overbaking can make it curdle or weep. Egg proteins set at moderate heat, so watch for a firm center before adding the meringue.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, cream, butter, walnut, lemon. 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.

You might also like

Lemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipesLemon CustardLemon Custard64 recipes