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Dessert

Pumpkin Pie

A baked pumpkin filling with egg, flour, sugar, spices, butter, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and cinnamon 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

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the filling

  1. Beat the egg and flour together thoroughly.

  2. Add sugar, pumpkin, ginger, cinnamon, melted butter, and salt.

  3. Pour in milk to fill a quart bowl with the mixture.

Bake

  1. Transfer to a common size pan.

  2. Bake very slowly at 300°F (150°C) 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 + cinnamontop 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  4. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg
Sets the custard as it cooks, giving the filling structure and body.
Flour
Thickens the filling and helps it hold together when baked.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and adds to its browning as it bakes.
Pumpkin
Provides the main flavor and moisture of the filling.
Milk
Adds liquid that gives the filling its smooth, custard-like texture.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, contributing to a tender texture.

The step that matters

Bake very slowly at 300°F (150°C) until set. Eggs set through gentle heat; baking too hot can curdle or puff the custard and cause cracking, while stopping too early leaves it runny. Baking until set gives a firm, smooth filling.

Swap the ginger

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, flour, sugar, pumpkin, cinnamon, butter, 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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