Skip to main content
Dessert

Cream Pie

A sweet pie with a flour and sugar crust and a milk‑based filling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Flour and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,623 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Cream Pie

enough for 6 layers or 3 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.

Make the crust

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

  2. Mix 2 cups flour, 2 cups sugar, 4 eggs, ⅔ cup cold water, and 1 teaspoon baking powder for the crust.

  3. Bake the crust in jelly tins until golden, enough for 6 layers or 3 pies.

Make the cream

  1. Heat 1 pint milk until boiling for the cream.

  2. Beat together 2 eggs and 3 tablespoons flour.

  3. Add the egg mixture to the boiling milk, stirring constantly.

  4. Season with salt and flavoring.

Make the filling and assemble

  1. Beat together ½ cup sugar, 1 tablespoon flour, and the white of 1 egg for the filling.

  2. Add 1 cup milk and mix well.

  3. Pour the cream between two crusts.

  4. Top with grated nutmeg.

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. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Milk + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,685 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, 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 cream and give the custard structure as they cook.
Flour
Thickens the cream and gives the crust body and structure.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the cream, adding richness and moisture.
Sugar
Sweetens the crust and filling and adds tenderness to the crust.
Baking powder
Lifts the crust so it bakes lighter rather than dense.

The step that matters

Adding the egg mixture to the boiling milk. Eggs can scramble if they hit hot milk too fast. Stirring constantly while adding them spreads the heat evenly, so the cream thickens smoothly instead of curdling.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Jalapenofits less well
  4. Turmericfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, egg, milk. 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 pie recipes

Lemon 54Boston 44Sour 38Coconut 24Whipped 20Orange 18 See all 378 →

You might also like

White CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesSpice CakeSpice Cake344 recipes