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Dessert

Cinnamon Pie

A custard pie with cinnamon, eggs, milk, butter, sugar, and cornstarch.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Cinnamon 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.

Make the filling

  1. Melt the butter and sugar together in a saucepan.

  2. In a separate bowl, beat the egg yolks with the cinnamon and cornstarch (or flour) and mix in the milk.

  3. Combine the melted butter and sugar with the egg mixture and bring to a boil.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a pie crust and top with the beaten egg whites.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) until the top is lightly browned.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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
Egg yolks thicken the filling, and beaten egg whites form a light topping that browns in the oven.
Cornstarch or flour
Starch thickens the liquid filling as it heats, giving it a set, sliceable body.
Butter
Fat adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel to the filling.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps the top brown in the oven.
Milk
Provides the liquid base that the starch and eggs thicken into a custard-like filling.

The step that matters

Bring the filling to a boil. Starch needs to reach a boil to fully thicken, so stopping early can leave the filling runny. Egg yolks in the mixture should be kept moving while heating so they cook smoothly without scrambling.

“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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