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Dessert

Pumpkin Pudding

A baked pumpkin dessert with butter, eggs, wine, brandy, sugar, cinnamon, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the pumpkin

  1. Cut the pumpkin into slices, remove the seeds and soft parts, and cut it into small pieces.

  2. Stew the pumpkin in very little water until tender, then press it in a colander until dry.

  3. In a pan, combine the dry pumpkin with butter and a little salt, and mash it until fine.

Make the filling

  1. Once cool, whisk the eggs until thick and stir them into the pumpkin mixture.

  2. Add sugar to taste, along with the brandy, wine, and cinnamon.

Bake

  1. Line your plates with pastry and bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven.

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. Wine + brandytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,427 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Butter + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  5. Wine + cinnamontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,170 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).

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
Forms the bulk of the pudding and gives it its body and flavor.
Butter
Adds fat for a rich, smooth texture and flavor.
Eggs
Thicken and set the mixture, giving it structure when baked.
Sugar
Adds sweetness, adjusted to taste.

The step that matters

Drying the pumpkin. Pumpkin holds a lot of water. If it is not pressed dry after stewing, excess moisture thins the filling and keeps it from setting firmly when baked.

Swap the pumpkin

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, egg, wine, brandy, sugar, 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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