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Dessert

Strawberry Cream Pie

A fruit pie with a sweetened strawberry filling and a crust topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 88,785 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Strawberry Cream Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Fill the pie

  1. Line a pie dish with the crust.

  2. Fill with strawberries and sprinkle with powdered sugar.

  3. Cover with a thick layer of crust, but do not pinch the edges.

Make the custard

  1. Heat the milk to boiling.

  2. Beat the egg whites and stir them lightly into the boiling milk.

  3. Add the white sugar and cornstarch mixed with a little cold milk.

  4. Stir and cook for 3 minutes until thickened.

Finish and serve

  1. Replace the top crust and sprinkle sugar over it before serving.

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 + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Sugar and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Strawberries
Provide the fruit filling, adding flavor and moisture to the pie.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard that thickens when heated.
Egg whites
Add structure to the custard as their proteins set with heat.
Cornstarch
Thickens the hot milk mixture into a smooth, sliceable custard.
Powdered sugar
Adds sweetness to the strawberries.

The step that matters

Stirring the egg whites into the boiling milk. Egg proteins set quickly in hot liquid, so the whites should be stirred in lightly to keep them in fine pieces rather than rubbery, lumpy strands.

“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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