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Dessert

Pastry for Cream Pie

A pastry crust for a custard filling made with lard, flour, corn starch, sugar, egg, milk, butter, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Walnut and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,230 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Pastry for 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 dough

  1. Beat the lard until light and fluffy.

  2. Add the flour and mix.

  3. Thin the mixture with water.

  4. Add salt.

Shape the crust

  1. Line your pie plate with the dough.

  2. Sprinkle flour over it.

  3. Place another layer of dough on top for the upper crust.

  4. Bake at 400°F (200°C).

Make the filling

  1. Mix corn starch and sugar.

  2. Add the egg.

  3. Stir in the milk, salt, and butter.

  4. Cook until thick like custard.

  5. Sweeten the cream to taste.

  6. Add corn starch or flour.

  7. Add a little salt.

  8. Add nutmeg.

Fill and bake

  1. Pour the cream mixture into the pie crust.

  2. Bake with the top crust.

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. Walnut + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,230 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Corn + walnuttop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together349 recipes

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

  5. Corn + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Lard
Coats the flour so the crust turns out tender and flaky.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the dough together.
Egg
Helps the filling set and bind when it is cooked.
Milk
Supplies the liquid that cooks into a creamy custard.
Corn starch
Thickens the custard as it heats.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling.

The step that matters

Cook until thick like custard. The filling must be cooked fully so the starch thickens and the egg sets. If it is undercooked, it stays runny and will not firm up after baking and cooling.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits about as well
  3. Milletfits about as well
  4. Walnutthe original

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