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Dessert

Cream Filling

A sweet custard-like filling made from eggs, butter, sugar, milk, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 Filling

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a bowl, stir together the eggs, sugar, flour, and butter.

  2. In a saucepan, bring the milk to a boil.

Make the cream

  1. Add the egg mixture to the boiling milk and cook until it thickens.

  2. Remove from heat and let it cool.

  3. Flavor as desired and spread.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
Their proteins set when heated, helping the cream thicken.
Flour
Its starch swells in hot liquid, thickening the cream.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the richness of the eggs and butter.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the eggs and flour thicken into a cream.

The step that matters

Adding the egg mixture to the boiling milk. Egg proteins can scramble and curdle if heated too quickly or left unstirred. Whisking the mixture in steadily and cooking gently until it thickens keeps the cream smooth.

“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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