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Dessert

Cream Pie

A baked pastry with a sweet cream filling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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 Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA rather quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a rather quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Beat the egg, sugar, milk, flour, baking soda, cream of tartar, salt, and melted butter until well combined.

  3. Divide the batter equally between two cream pie tins.

Bake and split

  1. Bake in the preheated oven until golden brown.

  2. Once cooled, carefully split the cakes with a sharp knife.

Make the cream and assemble

  1. Combine 1 quart of milk, 1 egg, 1 cup of sugar, flavoring, flour, and a little salt in a saucepan.

  2. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly until thickened.

  3. Fill the split cakes with the cream and sprinkle the top with sugar.

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 + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

Flour
Provides the structure that sets the cake crumb and holds the cream filling.
Egg
Adds structure and richness to the cake batter and thickens the cream.
Baking soda
Reacts with the cream of tartar to release gas that lifts the batter.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the batter so it reacts with baking soda, helping the cakes rise.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and flavor in the cake crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the cakes and cream and helps the cakes brown.

The step that matters

Stirring the cream until thickened. Flour and egg in the cream must be stirred constantly over medium heat so the starch swells evenly and the custard thickens without scorching or lumps.

“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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