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Dessert

Mock Cream Pie

A sweet pie made with egg, sugar, cream, vinegar, spices, and two crusts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Mock 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.

Prepare the filling

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

  2. In a bowl, combine the beaten egg, sugar, cream (or milk), vinegar, cinnamon, cloves, and allspice.

Assemble and bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a pie crust and cover with a second crust.

  2. Bake until golden brown.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  5. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Egg
Binds the filling and sets into a firm custard structure as it bakes.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the top crust brown.
Cream (or milk)
Provides moisture and richness to the filling.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that balances the sweetness.
Cinnamon
Adds warm aroma to the filling.

The step that matters

Bake until golden brown. The beaten egg in the filling sets as its proteins heat and firm up. Baking until golden shows the crust is browning, but the filling needs to be fully set before the pie is removed from the oven.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, cream, vinegar, cinnamon, allspice):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Clovethe original
  3. Cardamomfits less well
  4. Tarragonfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, cream, vinegar, cinnamon, allspice. 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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