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Dessert

The Uueen of Cream Pies

A sweet custard pie made with eggs, flour, powdered sugar, baking soda, cream of tartar, and lemon flavoring.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 ↓

The Uueen of Cream Pies

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Sift together the flour, cream of tartar, and baking soda.

Make the batter

  1. Beat the egg yolks.

  2. Mix in half of the powdered sugar.

  3. Beat the egg whites.

  4. Mix in the remaining powdered sugar.

  5. Combine the beaten yolks and whites.

  6. Gradually mix in the flour mixture.

  7. Add lemon flavoring to the batter.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into eight jelly pans.

  2. Bake until light and fluffy.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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
Whipped yolks and whites give the batter its light, airy structure and lift.
Flour
Provides the starch that sets the batter into a sponge structure as it bakes.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the batter and dissolves easily into the whipped eggs.
Cream of tartar
Stabilises the whipped egg whites, helping them hold their volume.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the batter to help it rise and lighten.

The step that matters

Beat the egg whites. Whites must be beaten to hold stiff, stable foam; under-beaten or greasy whites collapse, and the cake loses its light, fluffy texture.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, 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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