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Dessert

Pumpkin Pie

A pumpkin pie made with pumpkin, milk, eggs, molasses, ginger, spices, and butter, baked with an under crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Pumpkin Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pumpkin

  1. Cut pumpkin into 4-inch pieces, remove seeds and pulp, but keep the rind.

  2. Steam pumpkin for 2 hours or until soft.

  3. Place in the oven briefly to dry.

  4. Run the pumpkin through a colander.

Make the filling

  1. In a bowl, combine 1 cup pumpkin puree, 1 cup milk, 2 beaten eggs, 2 tablespoons molasses, 1 teaspoon ginger, ¼ teaspoon salt, ¼ teaspoon cinnamon, and a pinch of cloves.

  2. Sweeten to taste and add butter.

  3. If the mixture is not soft enough, add more milk.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake with only an under crust.

  2. Serve slightly warm with Edam cheese.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Ginger + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Pumpkin + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,744 recipes

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

  5. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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 it its body and moisture.
Eggs
Set when baked, giving the filling its structure.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness, and loosens the mixture to the right consistency.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, depth of flavor and color.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother texture.

The step that matters

Drying the pumpkin puree. Excess water in the pumpkin makes the filling loose and watery, so it may not set firmly. Drying the puree concentrates its flavor and gives a thicker base before the liquid ingredients are added.

Swap the pumpkin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, egg, molasses, ginger, cinnamon, clove, butter):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg, molasses, ginger, cinnamon, clove, 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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