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Dessert

Mock Cream Pie

A pie with a custard filling and meringue topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Mock Cream Pie

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.

Make the custard

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

  2. In a bowl, beat the sugar, cornstarch, and egg yolks together.

  3. Bring the milk to a boil.

  4. Stir the egg mixture, salt, and butter into the boiling milk.

Bake and top the pie

  1. Prepare a pie crust and bake it until golden.

  2. Fill the baked crust with the custard mixture.

  3. Grate nutmeg on top of the custard.

  4. Bake the pie again.

Make and brown the meringue

  1. Beat the egg whites to stiff peaks, adding 2 tablespoons of sugar.

  2. Spread the meringue over the pie.

  3. Brown the meringue 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 + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
Yolks thicken the custard as they cook, and whites build the meringue's airy structure.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard, which sets as it cooks.
Cornstarch
Swells when heated with the milk, thickening the custard so it holds its shape.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and helps stabilise the meringue.
Butter
Adds richness and a smoother mouthfeel to the custard.

The step that matters

Stir the egg mixture into the boiling milk. Egg proteins and starch thicken only when heated, and hot spots can scramble the eggs. Stirring constantly keeps the custard smooth while it thickens.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Jalapenofits less well
  4. Capersfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, milk, sugar, flour, butter. 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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