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Dessert

Cream Filling

A sweet, vanilla-flavored custard used as a filling for pastries.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 Filling

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard base

  1. Mix the flour and sugar together.

  2. Slowly add the hot milk.

  3. Pour the mixture into a double boiler.

  4. Cook for 20 minutes.

  5. Remove from heat.

Finish the cream

  1. Beat the egg.

  2. Add the egg and butter to the flour and milk mixture.

  3. Return to the heat.

  4. Cook over water until the egg is set.

  5. Add the salt.

  6. Cool.

  7. Stir in the vanilla.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + vanillatop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,241 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, 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

Flour
Thickens the cream as it cooks with the milk.
Egg
Sets when heated, giving the cream body and structure.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the thickened custard is made from.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps soften the set of the custard.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Cook over water until the egg is set. Egg proteins coagulate around 160°F, so gentle heat over water is needed to thicken the cream without scrambling the egg. Overheating curdles the custard into lumps.

Swap the vanilla

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

  1. Vanillathe original
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Coconutfits less well

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

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