Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓
Cream Pie
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Make the custard
Boil the sweet milk in a saucepan.
In a bowl, mix sugar, corn starch (or flour), lemon extract, egg yolks, and sweet cream.
Add the mixture to the boiling milk and stir well.
Prepare the crust
Bake the pie crust until golden.
Pour the custard into the baked crust.
Top and brown
Beat the egg whites until stiff.
Gradually add sugar and lemon extract to the beaten egg whites.
Spread the egg white mixture over the custard.
Place in the oven at 400°F (200°C) and brown lightly.
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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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Milk + corntop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,955 recipes
Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).
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Corn + lemontop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,927 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together19,053 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together29,399 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Sweet milk
- Forms the liquid base that is thickened into the custard.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the custard and helps stabilize the beaten egg whites.
- Corn starch or flour
- Thickens the custard as it heats.
- Egg yolks
- Enrich and thicken the custard as they set with heat.
- Sweet cream
- Adds richness and a softer, creamier texture to the custard.
- Egg whites
- Beaten to stiff foam, they form a light topping that browns in the oven.
The step that matters
Add the mixture to the boiling milk and stir well.. Egg yolks can curdle or scramble if they meet very hot liquid without constant stirring. Stirring while pouring spreads the heat evenly, and the starch thickens the custard smoothly as it heats.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, sugar, corn, egg, cream):
- Vanillafits better
- Coconutfits better
- Figfits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against milk, sugar, corn, egg, cream. 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.
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