cream pie is a single-crust pie with a rich, sweet, custard-like filling, commonly thickened with flour or cornstarch and/or eggs, and in modern times also often having a whipped cream topping. Pies with a custard-type filling have been known since medieval times in Britain and Europe. The Forme of Cury, a cookery manuscript compiled around 1390 by the master cooks of King Richard II, contains a recipe for “daryols,” which comprised “coffyns” (pie shells) filled with a mixture of cream, almond milk, sugar, and saffron and baked in an oven. See dariole.
