Why it works: Milk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. 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 filling
Combine milk, egg yolks, flour, and sugar in a double boiler.
Stir and cook until thickened.
Assemble and bake
Pour the mixture into a pre-baked pie crust.
Prepare frosting with the reserved egg whites and frost the pie.
Place the pie in a 350°F (175°C) oven to brown the frosting.
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 + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together77,875 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Milk and flour 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
- Milk
- Provides the liquid base that the eggs and flour thicken into a custard.
- Eggs
- Egg yolks thicken the custard as they set; the whites become the frosting.
- Flour
- Starch swells when heated, thickening the custard and giving it body.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the custard and balances the richness of the milk and yolks.
The step that matters
Cooking the custard until thickened. Egg yolks set and flour starch swells over gentle heat. Cooking too fast or too hot can curdle the eggs, while stopping too early leaves the filling runny. A double boiler keeps the heat even.
“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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