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Dessert

Pumpkin Pie

A sweet pie made with pumpkin, sugar, spices, eggs, milk, and a crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,380 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Pumpkin Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA rather hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the filling

  1. Cook the pumpkin until dry and pass it through a coarse sieve.

  2. Add the sugar, cinnamon, ginger, salt, and milk to the pumpkin.

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

Bake

  1. Line a deep pie pan with the pie crust and fill it with the pumpkin mixture.

  2. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C).

  3. Wrap the edge of the pastry with a wet cloth to prevent burning.

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. Cinnamon + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Pumpkin + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,744 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Pumpkin
Provides the bulk and body of the filling once cooked dry and sieved.
Eggs
Set during baking to give the filling its firm, custard-like structure.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the filling brown lightly as it bakes.
Milk
Adds moisture and richness, softening the filling into a smooth custard.

The step that matters

Wrapping the pastry edge with a wet cloth. The thin pastry rim browns and burns faster than the filling in a hot oven. A damp cloth shields it from direct heat so the filling can finish setting.

Swap the ginger

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pumpkin, sugar, 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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