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Dessert

Squash Pie

A pie made with squash, ginger, sugar, lemon extract, milk, eggs, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,154 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Squash Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the filling

  1. Mix the squash, butter, sugar, and egg yolks in a bowl.

  2. Add the lemon extract, ginger, and scalded milk to the mixture.

  3. Pour the mixture into a pie crust.

Top and bake

  1. Whip the egg whites.

  2. Fold in 3 tablespoons of sugar for the topping.

  3. Spread the egg white mixture over the pie.

  4. 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 + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,154 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Egg proteins set the filling and give the meringue topping its structure.
Squash
Provides the bulk, moisture, and body of the filling.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps stabilize the whipped egg white topping.
Milk
Adds moisture and creaminess, giving the filling a softer, smoother texture.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender texture in the filling.

The step that matters

Bake until set. Egg proteins coagulate as the pie heats and firm the filling. Underbaked pie stays runny in the center, while overbaking can make the custard weep or crack.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Gingerthe original

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