Skip to main content
Dessert

Cream Filling

A sweet custard-like filling made with milk, sugar, eggs, flour, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Cream Filling

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Beat the eggs in a bowl.

  2. Mix the flour and sugar together, then add to the eggs.

  3. Slowly pour in the hot milk while stirring.

  4. Return the mixture to a double boiler and cook for 15 minutes, stirring constantly until it thickens.

Finish

  1. Flavor the filling when it is cold.

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 + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Flour + vanillatop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,241 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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
Thicken the custard as they set during cooking and add richness.
Flour
Thickens the filling by absorbing liquid and stabilizing the mixture as it heats.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps keep the custard smooth.
Hot milk
Forms the liquid base that thickens into the body of the filling.

The step that matters

Cook the mixture while stirring constantly. Egg and starch mixtures can scorch on the bottom or turn lumpy if left unstirred. Constant stirring over gentle heat in a double boiler keeps the mixture even and lets it thicken smoothly as the starch and egg proteins set.

Swap the vanilla

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, sugar, egg, flour):

  1. Vanillathe original
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Blueberryfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, sugar, egg, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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.

More cream filling recipes

Chocolate 21Whipped 17Ice 15Cake 11Sour 6Almond 5 See all 61 →

You might also like

Vanilla Ice CreamVanilla Ice Cream108 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipes