Why it works: Cream and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓
Cream Pie
Ingredients
Directions
Make the filling
Pour 1 pint of cream into a bowl.
Add 1½ cups of powdered sugar and let it stand.
Beat the whites of 3 eggs to a stiff froth and add to the cream mixture. Beat thoroughly until well combined.
Grate a little nutmeg over the mixture.
Bake
Pour into two pie crusts without upper crusts and bake.
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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Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Cream + nutmegtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,920 recipes
Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
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Egg + nutmegtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together24,744 recipes
Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
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Sugar + nutmegtop 20% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together23,364 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
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Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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
- Provides richness and moisture, giving the filling a soft, smooth body.
- Powdered sugar
- Sweetens the filling and dissolves smoothly into the cream.
- Egg whites
- Whipped to a stiff froth, they lighten the filling and help it set when baked.
The step that matters
Beat the egg whites to a stiff froth. Stiff egg whites trap air that gives the filling lightness. If they are underbeaten or deflated when folded in, the pie will be denser and may not set as lightly.
“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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