Name: Cream Pie
Ingredients: 1 pint milk; 2 tablespoons corn starch; 2 egg yolks, beaten; ½ cup sugar; 1 teaspoon vanilla; 2 egg whites; sugar for topping

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

Bake a pie crust.
Boil ¾ pint of milk.
In the remaining ¼ pint, stir corn starch, beaten egg yolks, and sugar.

Make the custard

Remove from heat and add vanilla.
Fill the crust with the mixture.

Top and bake

Beat the egg whites and add sugar.
Spread over the pie.
Place in a 400°F (200°C) oven to brown.

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.

Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together19,187 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).
Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together35,032 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Corn + vanillatop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,943 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,955 recipes

Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).
Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

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

Milk: Provides the liquid and body for the custard filling.
Corn starch: Thickens the filling as it heats, giving it a set, sliceable texture.
Egg yolks: Help thicken and enrich the custard filling.
Egg whites: Beaten into a foam that forms the topping, which browns in the oven.
Sugar: Sweetens both the filling and the topping.

“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.