Name: Pumpkin Pie
Ingredients: 8 lbs pumpkin, peeled and cut into squares; 10 quarts milk; ½ lb corn starch; 2 lbs sugar; ¼ teaspoon salt; molasses to taste; spices to taste; small piece of butter for each pie

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

Boil the pumpkin squares in water until soft.
Rub the cooked pumpkin through a sieve.
In a large bowl, combine the pumpkin puree, milk, corn starch, sugar, salt, molasses, and spices.
Pour the mixture into pie crusts and place a small piece of butter on top of each pie before baking.

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.

Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,955 recipes

Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).
Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,225 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Pumpkin + corntop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together286 recipes

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

Swap the pumpkin

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

Vanillafits better
Figfits better
Coconutfits better
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.