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Dessert

Cream Pie

A baked custard pie with a crust, milk, cornstarch, vanilla, sugar, eggs, and whipped egg whites topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 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.

Prepare the crust

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

  2. Cover a plate with the pie crust.

  3. Bake the crust, pressing down any blisters.

Make the custard

  1. Heat the milk until scalding.

  2. Mix the cornstarch with a little cold milk.

  3. Add the cornstarch mixture to the scalded milk.

  4. Stir in the flavoring, sugar, and egg yolks until well combined.

  5. Cook the mixture until it reaches the proper consistency.

  6. Pour the custard over the crust.

Top and brown

  1. Beat the egg whites to a stiff froth.

  2. Add sugar to the beaten egg whites.

  3. Spread the egg whites over the top of the pie.

  4. Brown slightly in the oven.

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. Vanilla + sugartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

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

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

Vanilla and sugar 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

Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard, which thickens as it cooks.
Cornstarch
Thickens the custard as it heats, giving it a smooth, sliceable body.
Egg yolks
Enrich the custard and help it set to a creamy texture.
Egg whites
Whip into a stiff foam that forms the topping and browns in the oven.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and helps the meringue topping stay glossy and stable.

The step that matters

Cook the mixture until it reaches the proper consistency. Cornstarch thickens only when heated to a boil, and egg yolks can curdle if overheated. Cooking until thick but gently, the custard sets smoothly without becoming grainy or runny.

“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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