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Dessert

Filling for Cream Pies

A custard-like filling for cream pies made with milk, sugar, flour, eggs, salt, and lemon flavoring.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 ↓

Filling for Cream Pies

enough for four pies

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Heat a pot of water and place a bowl with the milk in it to create a double boiler.

  2. In a separate bowl, beat together the sugar, flour, and eggs until light and smooth.

Make the filling

  1. Once the milk boils, stir in the mixture of sugar, flour, and eggs along with the salt.

  2. Cook for 20 minutes, stirring often.

  3. Add lemon flavoring to taste.

Finish

  1. This filling is enough for four pies.

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 + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, 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
Forms the liquid base that gently thickens and gives the filling its creamy body.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and softens the texture of the set filling.
Flour
Its starch swells when heated, thickening the filling and giving it structure.
Eggs
Their proteins set with gentle heat, adding firmness and richness to the custard.

The step that matters

Cook for 20 minutes, stirring often. Constant stirring over the double boiler spreads heat evenly, so the flour starch thickens smoothly without lumps or scorching, and the eggs set without curdling.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

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