Why it works: Milk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Cream Pjce
Ingredients
Directions
Make the filling
Bring the milk to a boil.
In a bowl, mix the egg yolks and flour with a little cold milk.
Add the boiling milk to the yolk mixture and stir until thickened.
Flavor the mixture as desired.
Assemble and bake
Bake a pie crust and pour the mixture into it.
Whip the egg whites with sugar and flavoring, then spread on top.
Brown the top in the oven.
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 + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together77,875 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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 filling, which thickens as it cooks.
- Eggs
- Egg yolks thicken the filling, and whipped whites form the topping.
- Flour
- Starch that thickens the filling and gives it body.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps stabilize the whipped egg white topping.
The step that matters
Adding the boiling milk to the yolk mixture. Pouring hot milk into the yolks too quickly can scramble the eggs. Stirring constantly while adding it lets the starch and yolks thicken the custard smoothly without lumps.
“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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