Why it works: Flour and milk 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 ↓
Custard Pie
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare the crust
Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).
Line a pie dish with the crust and prick it with a fork.
Bake the crust until lightly golden.
Make the custard
In a bowl, beat together the eggs, sugar, and flour.
Add enough milk to fill the dish and mix well.
Pour the mixture into the baked crust.
Bake and serve
Bake until set, but do not allow to boil.
Let cool and serve cold the same day.
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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Flour + milktop 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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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Egg + milktop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together77,875 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Flour and milk 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
- Eggs
- Set the custard into a firm but tender filling as they cook.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the custard and adds to its smooth texture.
- Flour
- Helps stabilise the custard so it sets evenly without weeping.
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base that the eggs set into a creamy custard.
The step that matters
Bake until set, but do not allow to boil.. Egg proteins set at moderate heat and become grainy or watery if overcooked. Keeping the oven gentle lets the custard firm up smoothly without curdling or weeping.
“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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