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Dessert

Squash Pie

A baked pie made with boiled squash, molasses, brown sugar, butter, ginger, cinnamon, eggs, milk, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,380 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Squash Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Mix the squash with the brown sugar.

  2. Add the molasses, melted butter, ginger, cinnamon, and a pinch of salt.

  3. Beat the eggs well and add them to the mixture.

  4. Finally, stir in the milk.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a pie crust and bake until 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. Ginger + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  3. Cinnamon + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Molasses + sugartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

Squash
Forms the bulk of the filling and gives the pie its body and moisture.
Eggs
Set during baking to give the custard-like filling its structure.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and contributes to the caramel-like flavor.
Milk
Adds moisture and richness, helping the filling bake into a smooth custard.
Molasses
Adds depth, color and a robust sweetness to the filling.

The step that matters

Bake until set. Eggs set as they heat; underbaking leaves the filling loose and wet, while overbaking can make it curdle, crack and turn spongy.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Clovefits about as well
  3. Cardamomfits about as well
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, sugar, butter, cinnamon, egg, 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.

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