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Cream for Filling

A sweet custard cream made with milk, corn starch, eggs, sugar, butter, and vanilla or lemon extract.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Cream for Filling

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Wet the corn starch with enough milk to make a smooth paste.

  2. Boil the remaining milk.

  3. Beat the eggs, then add the sugar and corn starch mixture.

  4. Once the milk boils, gradually pour in the egg mixture while stirring continuously until smooth and thick.

  5. Add the butter and mix until melted, then set the custard aside to cool.

  6. Once cooled, add vanilla or lemon extract to taste.

Fill and serve

  1. Use a sharp knife to split the puffs and fill them with the cream mixture.

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 + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Corn + vanillatop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,943 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Corn starch
Thickens the custard as it heats, giving it a smooth, firm body.
Eggs
Add richness and, when heated, help set the custard to a thick texture.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the cream that the starch and eggs thicken.
Sugar
Sweetens the cream and balances the richness of the eggs and butter.
Butter
Adds fat for a silky mouthfeel and a rich flavor.

The step that matters

Pouring the egg mixture into the boiling milk. Adding the eggs too fast or without constant stirring can scramble them. Stirring continuously while pouring gradually keeps the eggs smooth and lets the starch thicken the custard evenly.

“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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