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Dessert

Pumpkin Pie

A custard pie made with eggs, sugar, stewed pumpkin, ginger, milk, and a pie crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pumpkin and ginger are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,158 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Pumpkin Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA brisk oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Beat the eggs in a bowl.

Make the custard

  1. Add the sugar, pumpkin, and ginger to the eggs and mix thoroughly.

  2. Stir in the milk until well combined.

  3. Pour the mixture into the pie crust.

Bake

  1. Bake for 5 minutes, then reduce the heat to 350°F (175°C) and bake until the custard is 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. Pumpkin + gingertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,158 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Pumpkin + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).

  3. Sugar + gingertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together14,054 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  4. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

Sugar and ginger barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 14,054 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

Eggs
Set the custard into a firm, sliceable filling as they cook.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps soften the texture of the filling.
Stewed pumpkin
Provides the main body, flavour and moisture of the filling.
Milk
Adds moisture and creaminess, loosening the custard for an even set.

The step that matters

Baking until the custard is set. Eggs thicken as their proteins coagulate with heat. Pulling the pie too early leaves a runny centre, while overbaking can make the custard curdle, weep, or crack. Reducing the heat after the first 5 minutes helps it set gently and evenly.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Gingerthe original
  4. Allspicefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, pumpkin, 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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