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Dessert

Pumpkin Pie

A sweet pumpkin custard baked in a pie crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Pumpkin 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.

Prepare the pumpkin

  1. Boil the pumpkin squares in water until soft.

  2. Rub the cooked pumpkin through a sieve.

Make the filling

  1. In a large bowl, combine the pumpkin puree, milk, corn starch, sugar, salt, molasses, and spices.

Bake the pies

  1. Pour the mixture into pie crusts, adding a small piece of butter to each pie before baking.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  3. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Pumpkin + corntop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together286 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

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 filling and gives the pie its body and flavor.
Milk
Adds moisture and, with the eggs-free custard base, helps the filling set when baked.
Corn starch
Thickens the filling so it holds its shape when sliced.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the earthy pumpkin flavor.
Molasses
Adds depth, color and a more robust sweetness.

The step that matters

Bake until set. Bake until the filling is set but still slightly wobbly in the center, as it firms further while cooling. Overbaking can cause cracking and a grainy texture.

Swap the pumpkin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, corn, sugar, molasses, butter):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, corn, sugar, molasses, butter. 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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