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Dessert

New England Pumpkin Pie

A pumpkin pie made with cooked pumpkin, milk, eggs, butter, sugar, salt, cinnamon, and ginger baked in a crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and ginger 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 ↓

New England Pumpkin Pie

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 filling

  1. Stew the pumpkin until soft and press through a sieve.

  2. In a bowl, beat the eggs well and stir into the milk.

  3. Gradually add the sifted pumpkin, melted butter, sugar, salt, cinnamon, and ginger.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into pie crusts.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°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. Cinnamon + gingertop 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Pumpkin
Provides the bulk and body of the filling, along with its flavor and moisture.
Eggs
Set during baking to give the custard its structure and firm texture.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the eggs thicken into a smooth custard.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, tender mouthfeel to the filling.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the savory notes of the spices.

The step that matters

Bake until set. Eggs thicken as their proteins coagulate with heat. Pulling the pie too early leaves a runny center, while overbaking can make the custard weep or crack.

Swap the ginger

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pumpkin, milk, egg, butter, 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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