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Dessert

Cream Pie

A custard pie made with cream, sugar, cornstarch, eggs, vanilla, and topped with whipped egg whites and powdered sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Cream Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Heat the cream or milk in a saucepan and sweeten to taste.

  2. Boil the mixture.

  3. Thicken with cornstarch and the yolks of the eggs mixed together.

  4. Add vanilla for flavor.

Bake and brown

  1. Pour the custard into pie crusts.

  2. Bake until set.

  3. Beat the egg whites until light.

  4. Spread the beaten egg whites on top with powdered sugar.

  5. Return to the oven and brown lightly.

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. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Cream + vanillatop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,301 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  4. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  5. Egg + vanillatop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together27,347 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

Cream or milk
Provides the liquid and richness that form the body of the custard.
Cornstarch
Thickens the custard as it heats, giving it a sliceable set.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help thicken the custard as they set with heat.
Egg whites
Beaten into a foam that forms a light topping that browns in the oven.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the meringue topping and helps it brown lightly.

The step that matters

Thicken with cornstarch and the yolks. Cornstarch and egg yolks must be fully mixed before or as they meet the hot liquid, otherwise lumps form. Starch thickens properly only once it is heated, so the custard must be brought to a boil and kept stirring until it thickens.

“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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