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
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the crusts
Bake the pie crusts according to your recipe.
Make the cream filling
In a bowl, combine the egg yolks, sugar, and flour. Stir in a little milk.
Add the remaining 3 cups of milk and the butter.
Cook the mixture over medium heat until it thickens, stirring constantly.
Remove from heat. Flavor with lemon or vanilla extract.
Fill the baked crusts with the cream mixture.
Top and bake
Beat the egg whites until stiff. Sweeten to taste.
Spread the sweetened egg whites on top of the pies.
Return the pies to the oven and bake until the tops are browned.
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.
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together19,053 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, 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
- Egg yolks
- Thicken the custard and add richness and color to the filling.
- Flour
- Thickens the milk mixture so the cream filling sets smoothly when cooked.
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base of the cream filling that thickens on cooking.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the filling and the meringue topping.
- Egg whites
- Whipped into a meringue that forms the topping and browns in the oven.
The step that matters
Cooking the cream filling. The mixture must be stirred constantly over medium heat until it thickens. Egg yolks can scramble if overheated or left unstirred, and flour needs to be fully cooked to thicken properly.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, flour, milk, butter):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Figfits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, flour, milk, butter. 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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