Vanilla Cream Pie

Ingredients

• 1 unbaked 9-inch pie crust (store-bought or homemade), fully baked and cooled
• 2 cups whole milk
• 2/3 cup granulated sugar
• 1/4 cup cornstarch
• 4 large egg yolks
• 2 tbsp butter, 1 tbsp vanilla extract
• 1 cup heavy cream, whipped with 2 tbsp sugar (for topping)

Method

1. If not using a pre-baked crust, blind-bake the crust at 400°F (205°C) with pie weights for 15 minutes, remove the weights, and bake 5 more minutes until golden. Cool completely.
2. Whisk the milk, sugar, cornstarch, and egg yolks together in a saucepan.
3. Cook over medium heat, whisking constantly, until thickened and bubbling, about 8 minutes.
4. Remove from heat and stir in the butter and vanilla.
5. Pour the warm filling into the cooled crust and press plastic wrap directly onto the surface to prevent a skin from forming.
6. Refrigerate at least 4 hours, or until fully chilled and set.
7. Top with sweetened whipped cream before serving.

The Tale of Vanilla Cream Pie

Story updated September 15, 2026

Vanilla cream pie is, in some sense, the original American cream pie, the flavor so standard that early recipes often didn't bother naming it, simply calling for 'cream pie' or 'custard pie' with vanilla assumed. Vanilla itself has a much older story: it's native to Mesoamerica, first cultivated by the Totonac people of eastern Mexico and later prized by the Aztecs, and Spanish colonizers carried it back to Europe in the sixteenth century. It remained a rare, expensive luxury for centuries, since the orchid can only be hand-pollinated outside its native range, and only became affordable enough for everyday American baking in the late 1800s. Once it did, vanilla cream pie became a fixture of American cookbooks by the 1890s, the plain, comforting standard against which every other cream pie, chocolate, banana, coconut, was implicitly measured.