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Dessert

Pumpkin Custard Pie

A custard pie made with pumpkin, egg, spices, sugar, flour, milk, butter, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Pumpkin Custard Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

Make and fill the pie

  1. In a bowl, combine pumpkin, egg, cinnamon, ginger, sugar, flour, hot milk, butter, and salt. Mix well until smooth.

  2. Line a pie tin with a 1-inch crust.

  3. Pour the mixture into the crust.

Bake

  1. Bake slowly for 45 minutes to 1 hour.

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. Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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 the main pumpkin flavor of the custard filling.
Egg
Sets the custard as it heats, giving the filling structure.
Flour
Thickens the custard and helps it hold its body when baked.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and contributes to browning at the edges of the custard.
Milk
Supplies liquid and richness, helping the custard stay smooth and tender.

The step that matters

Bake slowly. Eggs set through gentle, moderate heat. Baking too hot can make the custard puff, crack, or turn grainy, while baking long enough ensures the center sets fully.

Swap the ginger

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pumpkin, egg, cinnamon, sugar, flour, milk, 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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