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Dessert

Cream Peach Pie

A peach pie with a creamy filling made from milk, egg whites, sugar, and cornstarch.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

Cream Peach Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and bake the pie

  1. Peel the peaches and remove the stones.

  2. Line your pie dish with pie crust.

  3. Fill the dish with the peaches.

  4. Sprinkle the peaches with sugar.

  5. Lightly lay the upper crust on top.

  6. Butter the lower crust where it contacts the filling.

  7. Bake until the pie is done.

Make the cream

  1. In a saucepan, heat the milk.

  2. Whip the egg whites.

  3. Stir the whipped egg whites into the heated milk.

  4. Mix 1 tablespoon of sugar and 3 teaspoons of cornstarch with a little milk.

  5. Add the sugar-cornstarch mixture to the milk mixture.

  6. Boil for 3 minutes until thickened.

  7. Let the mixture cool.

Finish and serve

  1. Lift the crust, pour the cream into the hot pie, and replace the crust.

  2. Allow to cool before serving.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Peach + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together781 recipes

    Shared aroma: phellandrene (minty).

  3. Peach + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together860 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Cornstarch
Thickens the milk mixture into a smooth, sliceable cream when heated.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the cream that sets as it thickens.
Egg whites
Whipped foam adds lightness and helps the cream set with a tender texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the peaches and the cream and balances their tartness.
Ripe peaches
Provide the main fruit flavor and juicy filling for the pie.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the lower crust where it meets the juicy filling.

The step that matters

Boil for 3 minutes until thickened. Cornstarch only thickens fully once the mixture reaches a boil and stays there briefly. If it is undercooked, the cream stays thin and will not hold its body when the pie is cut.

Swap the peach

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Coconutfits about as well
  4. Peachthe original

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