Skip to main content
Main

Potato Custard Pie

A custard pie made with boiled potatoes, eggs, sugar, nutmeg, butter, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Potato Custard Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the custard

  1. Grate the boiled potatoes.

  2. Beat the yolks of the eggs very light.

  3. Add a little sugar and grated nutmeg to the eggs.

  4. Mix in the grated potatoes, butter, and enough milk to create a very thin custard.

Bake

  1. Fill the pie crust with the mixture.

  2. Bake until the custard is set.

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

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

  2. Potato + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,052 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  4. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

  5. Nutmeg + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,685 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Grated potato gives the custard body and a thicker, creamier texture once baked.
Eggs
Egg yolks thicken and set the custard as it bakes, giving the pie its structure.
Milk
Milk makes the custard liquid enough to pour and adds moisture and richness.
Butter
Butter adds fat, which contributes richness and a smoother mouthfeel to the custard.

The step that matters

Bake until the custard is set. Egg proteins coagulate as the custard heats, so underbaking leaves it runny while overbaking can make it curdled or rubbery. Look for a set center rather than relying on time alone.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Sweet potatofits about as well
  2. Potatothe original
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Leekfits about as well

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

More potato custard pie recipes

Sweet 13 See all 8 →

You might also like

Potato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesPotato RollsPotato Rolls78 recipesPotato ChipsPotato Chips53 recipesSweet Potato CroquettesSweet Potato Croquettes53 recipes