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Dessert

French Cream Pie

A pie with a baked crust and a sweet custard filling topped with sugar and grated coconut.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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French Cream Pie

Why it works: Vanilla and coconut match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,294 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

French Cream Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the crust

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a bowl, beat the eggs and mix in the sugar, flour, baking powder, and cold water until smooth.

  3. Pour the batter into a pie dish and bake until golden.

Make the cream filling

  1. For the cream filling, boil the sweet milk in a saucepan.

  2. In a separate bowl, mix the cornstarch with a little milk and add it to the boiling milk along with the beaten eggs and sugar.

  3. Stir until thickened, then remove from heat and add the butter and vanilla.

Assemble and finish

  1. Once the pie crust is cool, split it in half and spread the cream filling inside.

  2. Sprinkle the top with sugar and grated coconut.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Vanilla + coconuttop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,294 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

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

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

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

  5. Milk + coconuttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,648 recipes

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

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
Bind the batter and thicken the custard filling as they set with heat.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the baked crust together.
Cornstarch
Thickens the milk mixture into a smooth, sliceable cream when heated.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, tender mouthfeel to the cooked filling.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the crust rises and stays light.

The step that matters

Stir until thickened. Cornstarch and egg need to be heated while stirring so the starch swells and the eggs set smoothly; if left unstirred, the milk can scorch or lumps can form, and the filling may stay thin or curdle.

Swap the coconut

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

  1. Figfits about as well
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Coconutthe original
  4. Blueberryfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, flour, milk, butter, vanilla. 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.

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