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Dessert

Cream Pie

A custard pie with a buttery crust and vanilla or lemon flavored filling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 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 cream

  1. Beat 1 egg with ½ cup sugar and ¼ cup flour until creamy.

  2. Stir this mixture into 1 cup of boiling milk.

  3. Add 1 teaspoon butter and stir until it thickens, then flavor with vanilla or lemon.

Make the crust

  1. For the crust, beat 3 egg yolks with 1 cup granulated sugar, 4 tablespoons milk or water, 1 cup flour, and 1 teaspoon baking powder.

  2. Fold in the beaten egg whites.

  3. Flavor the crust with the same vanilla or lemon as the cream.

Bake and assemble

  1. Bake in two medium-sized jelly cake tins at 400°F (200°C) until golden brown.

  2. When cool, spread the cream between the layers and on top.

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. Milk + buttertop 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

Eggs
Yolks thicken the cream and give the crust structure and richness.
Flour
Starch thickens the cream, and flour gives the crust its structure.
Sugar
Sweetens the cream and crust and helps the crust brown.
Milk
Provides the liquid for the cream and moistens the crust batter.
Butter
Adds richness and a smoother texture to the cream.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the crust batter so it rises in the oven.

The step that matters

Stirring the flour mixture into boiling milk. The flour starch must be stirred constantly as it hits the boiling milk so it thickens evenly. Adding it too fast or stirring too little can leave lumps, and the cream may stay thin or uneven if it is not kept moving while it thickens.

Swap the vanilla

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, flour, milk, butter. 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 cream pie recipes

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