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Dessert

Pumpkin Pudding or Pie

A baked pumpkin custard with butter, eggs, cream, milk, brandy, wine, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pumpkin and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,744 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Pumpkin Pudding or 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

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

Make the filling

  1. In a large bowl, combine the pumpkin, butter, beaten eggs, cream, milk, and the brandy-wine mixture.

  2. Add cinnamon, sugar, and nutmeg to taste.

  3. Mix well until smooth.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a pie dish and bake for 45 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. Pumpkin + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,744 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Brandy + winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,427 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  5. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set the filling into a firm custard as they cook.
Pumpkin
Provides the main body, moisture and flavour of the filling.
Butter
Adds richness and fat for a smooth, tender texture.
Cream
Adds fat that makes the filling silkier and richer.
Milk
Adds liquid and softness to loosen the custard.

The step that matters

Mix well until smooth. Eggs, dairy and pumpkin must be fully blended so the custard sets evenly without lumps or streaks of egg. Uneven mixing can leave pockets that bake unevenly.

Swap the pumpkin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, egg, cream, milk, brandy, wine, cinnamon):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Applefits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Pumpkinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, egg, cream, milk, brandy, wine, cinnamon. 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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