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Dessert

Cream Pie

A sweet pie with a baked crust and a custard filling made from eggs, milk, and cornstarch.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

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 pie layers

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

  2. Beat the egg whites and yolks separately until stiff.

  3. Add the sugar to the beaten egg whites.

  4. Fold in the sifted flour, baking soda, and cream of tartar.

  5. Pour the mixture into two pie tins.

  6. Bake until golden.

Make the custard

  1. Heat the milk in a dish placed in hot water.

  2. Rub the cornstarch smoothly with a little milk.

  3. Add the eggs and sugar.

  4. Stir into the hot milk.

  5. Flavor the custard to taste.

  6. Let it cool.

Assemble

  1. Spread the cooled custard between the two layers of pie crust.

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

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

  2. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Cream + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

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

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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
Gives the baked layers structure so they hold together under the custard.
Sugar
Sweetens the pie and helps the beaten egg whites hold their foam.
Eggs
Whites trap air for lift, while yolks add richness and help the custard set.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the batter to release gas and lighten the layers.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard and adds richness.
Cornstarch
Thickens the custard as it heats so it can be spread.

The step that matters

Stir the egg and sugar mixture into the hot milk. Eggs can scramble when they meet very hot liquid. Cornstarch needs heat to thicken, but the custard should be stirred steadily so the eggs cook smoothly into a silky texture.

“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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