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Dessert

Royal Cream Pie

A custard pie with a flaky crust, baked with a cream and egg filling, topped with a sugared egg white mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Royal Cream Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Mix flour, sugar, and milk in a saucepan.

  2. Bring to a boil.

  3. Gradually add cream.

  4. Bring to a boil again.

  5. Remove from heat.

  6. Beat in 3 eggs, leaving out 2 whites.

Assemble and bake

  1. Line a pie dish with flaky crust.

  2. Pour in the mixture.

  3. Bake until the surface is golden brown.

Top and brown

  1. Beat the reserved egg whites with 1 ounce of sugar and a little spice.

  2. Spread the egg white mixture unevenly over the top.

  3. Return the pie to the oven to brown the topping.

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

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

  2. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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 as they set and enrich its texture, and the whites form the topping.
Flour
Thickens the milk and cream mixture so the custard holds its body.
Cream
Adds richness and fat, giving the custard a smooth, soft texture.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard with the flour and sugar.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and, whipped into the whites, helps the topping brown.

The step that matters

Beating in the eggs after removing from heat. Eggs added to a very hot mixture can scramble and turn grainy. Removing the pan from heat first lets the eggs blend in smoothly and thicken gently as the custard bakes.

“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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