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Dessert

Pumpkin Pie

A baked pie with pumpkin, brown sugar, spices, eggs, cream, and milk.

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 Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the filling

  1. Combine pumpkin, brown sugar, cinnamon, ginger, salt, and egg yolks in a bowl. Stir well.

  2. Add cream and milk, then fold in beaten egg whites until mixed thoroughly.

Assemble and bake

  1. Line two deep pie tins with crust.

  2. Fill the crusts with the pumpkin mixture.

  3. Bake in a moderate 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. 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. Pumpkin + gingertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,158 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  5. Cinnamon + milktop 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 main body and flavor of the filling.
Egg yolks
Thicken and set the filling as it bakes, adding richness.
Egg whites
Beaten into the filling to lighten its texture and help it rise.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and deepens the color of the filling.
Cream
Adds fat for a smooth, rich, tender texture.
Milk
Adds moisture and liquid so the custard-style filling sets softly.

The step that matters

Fold in the beaten egg whites gently until fully mixed. Beaten egg whites trap air that gives lightness; overmixing deflates them, while undermixing leaves streaks. Thorough, gentle folding keeps the filling even and airy as it bakes.

Swap the ginger

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

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

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