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Dessert

Custard Pie

Custard pie is a baked custard filling made with eggs, flour, sugar, milk, vanilla, nutmeg, and a pie crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Custard 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 custard

  1. Beat the yolks of the eggs until creamy.

  2. Stir the flour and sugar together to prevent lumps, then add to the beaten yolks.

  3. Add salt, vanilla, and nutmeg, then fold in the beaten egg whites.

  4. Gradually mix in the cooled scalded milk.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a deep pie pan lined with the pie crust.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 25 to 30 minutes.

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. Vanilla + milktop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

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

  2. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Vanilla + nutmegtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,781 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Flour + vanillatop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,241 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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
Yolks thicken the custard and whites lighten it, giving structure as it sets.
Milk
Provides the liquid base that the eggs set into a smooth custard.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps keep the custard tender.
Flour
Stabilizes the custard so it sets more firmly and holds its shape.

The step that matters

Gradually mix in the cooled scalded milk. Adding hot or warm milk to beaten eggs too quickly can scramble the yolks. Adding it slowly and after cooling helps keep the custard smooth.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Clovefits less well
  4. Turmericfits less well

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

More custard pie recipes

Apple 90Lemon 47Coconut 20Sweet Potato 13Chocolate 12Peach 12 See all 313 →

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