Why it works: Milk and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,053 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Cream Pie
Ingredients
Directions
Make the cream
Scald the milk in a saucepan.
Wet the cornstarch with a little cold milk.
Beat the egg yolks and sugar until light and fluffy.
Stir the egg mixture into the scalded milk.
Add lemon flavoring and set aside to cool.
Bake the crust
Line a pie plate with puff pastry and bake until golden.
Fill and top
Fill the baked crust with the cream mixture.
Beat the egg whites until stiff, then gradually add powdered sugar.
Spread the frosting over the cream and lightly brown in the oven.
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 + lemontop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together19,053 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together53,532 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, 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).
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Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together44,316 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).
Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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 of the cream and gives it body and moisture.
- Cornstarch
- Thickens the milk so the cream sets smooth and firm when cooled.
- Egg yolks
- Add richness and help thicken the cream as it sets.
- Puff pastry
- Forms a crisp, flaky shell that holds the cream filling.
- Egg whites
- Whipped to stiff peaks, they create the airy structure of the topping.
- Powdered sugar
- Sweetens the egg white topping and dissolves easily into it.
The step that matters
Stir the egg mixture into the scalded milk. Hot milk can scramble egg yolks if they meet it all at once, so the mixture should be blended in gradually while stirring. Cornstarch and yolks thicken the cream only when the mixture is evenly combined.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, sugar, egg):
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits about as well
- Raisinfits about as well
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against milk, sugar, 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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