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Dessert

Custard Pie

A baked custard filling in a pie crust made with eggs, sugar, vanilla, cornstarch, milk, butter, and optional spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and milk 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 ↓

Custard Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the custard

  1. In a bowl, combine the beaten eggs, sugar, vanilla, cornstarch, salt, and melted butter.

  2. Add milk to the mixture until it reaches 1 quart.

Assemble and bake

  1. Line a large pan with the pie crust.

  2. Pour the custard mixture into the crust.

  3. Spread the reserved beaten egg white on top.

  4. Bake in the preheated oven until set.

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. Vanilla + milktop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

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

  2. Butter + milktop 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. Vanilla + nutmegtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,781 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Vanilla + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,050 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Eggs
Set the custard into a sliceable structure as they cook and coagulate.
Milk
Provides the liquid base that the eggs set into a tender custard.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps keep the custard tender rather than rubbery.
Cornstarch
Stabilizes the custard so it sets smoothly and holds its shape when sliced.
Melted butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother, more tender texture.

The step that matters

Bake in the preheated oven until set. Egg custard keeps cooking after it leaves the oven, and overbaking makes it curdled, watery, or rubbery. Pull it when the centre barely jiggles so residual heat finishes the set.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Clovefits less well
  4. Peppermintfits less well

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

More custard pie recipes

Apple 90Lemon 47Coconut 20Sweet Potato 13Chocolate 12Peach 12 See all 313 →

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