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Dessert

Cream Pie

A custard pie made with sugar, flour, eggs, milk, cream, butter, and flavored with lemon or vanilla, topped with nutmeg and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Cream Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

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

  2. Line a pie tin with pastry.

Make the custard

  1. In a bowl, mix 1 cup sugar, 3 tablespoons flour, and 3 eggs until smooth.

  2. Add 1½ cups milk and 1½ cups cream, then flavor with lemon or vanilla extract.

  3. Pour the mixture into the prepared pie crust.

  4. Sprinkle the top with nutmeg and additional sugar.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in the preheated oven until set.

  2. Top with meringue before serving.

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. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set the custard as they cook, giving the filling its structure and body.
Flour
Thickens the custard so it holds its shape when sliced.
Milk
Provides the liquid base and moisture for a soft, creamy filling.
Cream
Adds richness and fat, producing a smoother, silkier texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps give the top a light browning.

The step that matters

Bake until set. Egg proteins coagulate as the custard heats, so pulling it too early leaves a runny filling, while overbaking makes it grainy and weeping. Watch for the centre to barely wobble.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

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