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Dessert

Cream Pies

A custard pie made with egg yolks, butter, sugar, flour, and cream, topped with meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream 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 Pies

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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

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

  2. In a bowl, mix the egg yolks, butter, sugar, flour, and cream until smooth.

  3. Pour the mixture into a pie crust.

Bake and top

  1. Bake until set, about 30-40 minutes.

  2. Whip the egg whites until stiff peaks form to make a meringue.

  3. Spread the meringue over the baked pie and return to the oven until golden.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Egg yolks
Thicken the filling as they set, giving it a rich, custard-like body.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, tender texture in the filling.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps keep it soft and smooth as it sets.
Flour
Adds a little starch to help the filling hold its shape when baked.
Rich cream
Contributes moisture and fat, making the filling creamy and smooth.
Egg whites
Whipped into a meringue that gives a light, airy topping that browns in the oven.

The step that matters

Whipping the egg whites to stiff peaks. Egg whites must be whipped until they hold stiff peaks to form a stable meringue. Under-whipped whites collapse and weep, and any trace of fat or yolk in the bowl prevents them from whipping properly.

“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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