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
Make the filling
Beat together the eggs and sugar.
Boil the milk with cornstarch and salt.
Add the egg mixture to the boiling milk and stir until it thickens.
Bake and serve
Pour the mixture into a baked pie crust and let it set in the oven.
Spread whipped cream sweetened with powdered sugar on top and flavor with vanilla.
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 + vanillatop 5% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together19,187 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).
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Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together35,032 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Cream + vanillatop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together12,301 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).
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Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together29,399 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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
- Thicken the custard and help it set firm when cooled.
- Cornstarch
- Thickens the boiling milk into a smooth, sliceable filling.
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base of the custard filling.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the filling and balances the flavor.
The step that matters
Stirring the egg mixture into the boiling milk. Adding the eggs to very hot milk without constant stirring can scramble them into lumps. Stirring keeps the egg proteins dispersed so the filling thickens evenly and 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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