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Dessert

Pumpkin Pie

A baked pie filled with stewed pumpkin, butter, spices, milk, sugar, eggs, and optional brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,038 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Pumpkin Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the pumpkin

  1. Place pumpkin pieces in a stewing pan with just enough water to prevent burning.

  2. Cover and stew slowly for about 30 minutes or until tender.

  3. If water remains, lift the lid to allow it to evaporate.

  4. Press the pumpkin through a colander.

  5. Add ¼ cup butter while hot.

Make the filling

  1. Once the pumpkin is cold, mix in ¼ teaspoon of coarse sea salt, 1 pint of milk, ½ teaspoon of ground mace, ½ teaspoon of ground cloves, 1 teaspoon of ground ginger, and ½ cup of sugar.

  2. Beat 4 eggs until light.

  3. Stir the beaten eggs into the mixture.

  4. Let the mixture sit for about 30 minutes.

  5. If desired, add ⅓ cup of brandy to the mixture.

Bake

  1. Line 4 deep pie plates with pie crust.

  2. Fill them with the pumpkin mixture.

  3. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for about 35 minutes.

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. Clove + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

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

  4. Pumpkin + gingertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,158 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Mace + gingertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,152 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

What each ingredient does

Pumpkin
Forms the bulk of the filling, giving body, moisture and the pie's main flavour.
Eggs
Set when baked, binding the pumpkin and milk into a firm, sliceable custard.
Milk
Adds liquid and richness, helping the filling set into a smooth custard.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps it brown lightly at the edges.
Butter
Adds fat for a richer, smoother texture and mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Let the pumpkin cool before adding the other filling ingredients. Adding eggs to hot pumpkin can begin to cook them unevenly and affect the smooth set of the custard, so the step's order matters.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pumpkin, butter, milk, clove, ginger, sugar, egg. 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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