Why it works: Butter and cream match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and 41,494 recipes mention both. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
The recipe
Ingredients
Contains: egg, milk, wheat (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)
Directions
Prepare the codlins
Gather small codlins and place them in a clean pan with spring water. Lay vine leaves over the codlins and cover with a cloth to trap steam.
When they soften, remove the skins and return them to the same water with vine leaves. Hang the pan over the fire until the codlins turn a nice green.
Remove the codlins from the water and place them in a deep dish, adding enough sugar to sweeten.
Make the custard
For the custard, boil 1 pint of cream with a cinnamon stick and enough sugar to sweeten. Let it cool, then stir in 4 beaten egg yolks and heat gently, stirring until thickened but not boiling.
Bake and assemble
Make a rich puff pastry lid and bake it. Once baked, remove the lid and cut it into small pieces, placing them inside the pie with points upwards.
Pour syrup over the codlins.
Pour the custard into the pie and garnish with thin strips of lemon peel on top.
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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.
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Butter + creamtop 3% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together41,494 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Sugar + cinnamontop 4% of all pairsAroma overlaplowMentioned together30,777 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Cinnamon + lemontop 5% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together7,950 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
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Sugar + creamtop 5% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together43,437 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Butter + cinnamontop 8% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together17,781 recipes
Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).
Sugar and cinnamon share little aroma chemistry, yet 30,777 recipes mention both: they likely 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
- Small codlins
- Provide the fruit that becomes the pie's main filling and flavour.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the codlins and the custard.
- Butter
- Enriches the pastry, adding flavour and helping it become flaky.
- Cream
- Forms a rich, smooth custard base.
- 4 egg yolks
- Thicken the custard as they gently set with heat.
The step that matters
Heat the custard gently after adding the egg yolks. Egg yolks set at low heat and curdle if boiled, so the custard must be stirred over gentle heat until thickened but never boiling.
Flavor stand-ins for the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, cream, cinnamon, egg):
- Vanillabetter flavor fit
- Raisinbetter flavor fit
- Appleabout as good a flavor fit
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, cream, cinnamon, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).
“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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