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Dessert

Baltimore Butter Pie

A custard pie made with milk, butter, sugar, and flour, baked until the filling rises.

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

Baltimore Butter Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA slack oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slack oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the filling

  1. Boil the milk with the butter and caster sugar.

  2. Mix the sugar and flour together.

  3. Stir the sugar and flour mixture into the boiling milk, beating rapidly with a whisk until thick.

Assemble and bake

  1. Line two deep custard pie plates with thin crust.

  2. Pour the mixture into the crusts.

  3. Bake in a 300°F (150°C) oven until the filling begins to rise in the middle, being careful not to overbake.

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. 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. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Milk
Forms the liquid base of the filling, giving it body and a creamy texture.
Fresh butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, tender filling.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps it set to a soft, sliceable texture.
Flour
Thickens the boiling milk so the filling becomes firm when cooled.

The step that matters

Stirring the flour and sugar into the boiling milk. Adding the dry mixture all at once while beating rapidly with a whisk prevents lumps. Flour needs to cook in hot liquid to thicken fully, so the mixture must be kept well stirred until thick.

“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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