Skip to main content
Dessert

Mock Cream Pie

A custard pie with a meringue topping, made with eggs, milk, sugar, corn starch, butter, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Mock Cream Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the custard

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Beat together the sugar, corn starch, and egg yolks in a bowl.

  3. Bring the milk to a boil.

  4. Stir in the egg mixture.

  5. Add a pinch of salt and the butter, then mix well.

Bake the crust

  1. Prepare a pie crust.

  2. Bake the crust until golden.

  3. Fill the baked crust with the custard mixture.

  4. Grate nutmeg on top.

  5. Bake again until set.

Top and brown

  1. Beat the egg whites to stiff peaks, then add 2 tablespoons of sugar.

  2. Spread the meringue over the pie.

  3. Brown the meringue in the oven.

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 + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  3. Corn + nutmegtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together563 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

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

  5. Milk + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,685 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Egg yolks thicken the custard as they set, and whites whip into the meringue topping.
Corn starch
Swells in hot liquid to thicken the custard so it holds its shape when sliced.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard, giving it body and a soft, creamy texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and helps stabilise the whipped egg whites in the meringue.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother mouthfeel in the custard.

The step that matters

Stirring the egg mixture into the boiling milk. Eggs can scramble if they meet very hot liquid too abruptly. Thickening starch needs heat to swell, so the custard should be stirred steadily while it thickens.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Gingerfits less well
  4. Tarragonfits less well

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

You might also like

Corn CakeCorn Cake90 recipesCorn Starch CakeCorn Starch Cake89 recipesCorn CakesCorn Cakes22 recipesGreen Corn PuddingGreen Corn Pudding14 recipes