Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓
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 batter
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Cream together the sugar and butter.
Add the milk, baking soda, cream of tartar, flour, whole egg, and egg yolks.
Mix until smooth.
Pour the batter into jelly cake tins that are 1 inch deep.
Bake and make the cream
Bake until golden brown.
For the cream, boil ⅔ pint of milk, reserving a little to mix with ½ cup of flour.
Stir the flour mixture into the boiling milk.
Add sugar and grated lemon rind to the boiling milk, stirring continuously.
Beat the egg whites until stiff and fold them into the mixture.
Assemble and finish
Let the cakes cool, then split and fill with the hot cream.
Dust the tops with powdered sugar.
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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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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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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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
- Butter
- Creams with the sugar to give the cake a tender, fine texture.
- All-purpose flour
- Provides the structure that holds the cake and thickens the cream.
- Egg yolks
- Add richness and help bind the batter and cream.
- Egg whites
- Whipped to stiffness to lighten the cream and add airiness.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the cream of tartar to lift the batter as it bakes.
- Cream of tartar
- Acidifies the batter so the baking soda produces gas for rising.
The step that matters
Beat the egg whites until stiff and fold them into the mixture. Under-whipped whites will not hold air, and over-mixing when folding deflates them. Gentle folding keeps the cream light and airy.
“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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