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Dessert

Cream Pie

A baked pie with a batter of eggs, sugar, butter, sweet milk, flour, baking powder, and milk, filled with a vanilla or lemon flavored cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 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 cake

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Beat together the eggs, sugar, melted butter, sweet milk, flour, and baking powder in a bowl.

  3. Divide the batter into two pans.

  4. Bake the batter until done.

Make the cream and assemble

  1. Boil the milk for the cream.

  2. Whisk in the egg and flour to the boiled milk.

  3. Once thickened, add vanilla or lemon to taste.

  4. Divide the cakes when done.

  5. Fill the cakes with the cream or jelly.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  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
Provide structure to the batter and thicken the cream when whisked into the hot milk.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the cake brown while baking.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the cake a tender crumb.
Flour
Forms the cake's structure and thickens the cream as it cooks.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the cake rises and turns light.
Milk
Makes the cream, which sets into a thick filling as it heats.

The step that matters

Whisk in the egg and flour to the boiled milk. If the egg and flour are added to very hot milk without constant whisking, the egg can scramble and the flour can clump, leaving a lumpy cream. Whisking keeps the starch and egg evenly dispersed so the cream thickens smoothly.

Swap the vanilla

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

  1. Vanillathe original
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Coconutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, butter, milk, flour. 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 cream pie recipes

Lemon 54Boston 44Sour 38Coconut 24Whipped 20Orange 18 See all 378 →

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