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Dessert

Cream Filling

A thickened custard made from flour, milk, eggs, sugar, and vanilla, used as a pastry filling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla 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 ↓

Cream Filling

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Mix flour and salt in a bowl.

  2. Gradually add scalded milk, stirring constantly.

  3. Cook in a double boiler for 15 minutes until thickened.

  4. Pour mixture over slightly beaten eggs and mix well.

  5. Return to double boiler and cook for 2 minutes over water just below boiling point.

Finish and flavor

  1. Remove from heat, cool slightly, and add vanilla.

  2. For chocolate cream filling, melt chocolate and mix with cream filling, replacing 1 cup sugar with ½ cup.

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 + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

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

  2. Vanilla + chocolatetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,020 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  3. Vanilla + sugartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Vanilla and sugar 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

Flour
Thickens the milk mixture so it becomes a smooth, set cream.
Eggs
Set with gentle heat to give the cream body and richness.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the flour and eggs thicken.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and softens the set texture of the cream.
Chocolate
Adds flavor and color to the optional chocolate version.

The step that matters

Return to double boiler and cook for 2 minutes over water just below boiling point.. Eggs thicken with gentle heat but can curdle or scramble if overheated. Keeping the water just below boiling and stirring lets the custard thicken smoothly.

“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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