Why it works: Milk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Cream Pies
Ingredients
Directions
Make the filling
Boil the milk in a saucepan.
Thicken the milk with flour until desired consistency.
Remove from heat and stir in the eggs, sugar, and flavoring.
Assemble and bake
Pour the mixture between two pie crusts.
Bake until the crust is golden.
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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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together77,875 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Milk and flour 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
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base of the filling that the other ingredients thicken and set.
- Flour
- Starch thickens the hot milk, giving the filling body and a smooth consistency.
- Eggs
- Proteins set as the filling cools, giving it a firm, custard-like texture.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and balances the flavor of the milk and eggs.
- Pie crusts
- Hold the filling in shape and provide the golden, browned edge.
The step that matters
Stir in the eggs off the heat. Eggs scramble and curdle when exposed to high heat. Removing the pan from heat before adding them lets them blend in smoothly and thicken gently.
“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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