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Dessert

Pumpkin Pie

A baked pumpkin custard filling in a pie crust, flavored with milk, eggs, spices, sugar, molasses, and whisky.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,620 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Pumpkin Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the pulp

  1. Peel and cut the pumpkin into pieces.

  2. Cover and cook slowly until tender.

  3. Remove the cover and dry the pulp, ensuring it does not stick or burn.

  4. Pass the pulp through a coarse sieve.

Make the filling

  1. Add the beaten eggs and whisky to the pulp.

  2. Mix in the melted butter, sugar, salt, ginger, allspice, cinnamon, and molasses.

  3. Pour the mixture into a pie crust and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 45 to 50 minutes.

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. Ginger + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Pumpkin + allspicetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together259 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Ginger + whiskytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together163 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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

What each ingredient does

Pumpkin pulp
Forms the body of the filling and provides most of its flavour and moisture.
Eggs
Set the custard as they cook, giving the pie its firm, sliceable structure.
Milk
Adds moisture and richness, helping the filling become smooth and creamy.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and contributes to browning at the edges of the pie.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother, more tender texture.
Molasses
Adds depth, colour and a slightly bitter sweetness to the spice flavour.

The step that matters

Drying the pulp. Cooking off excess water before mixing concentrates the pumpkin and keeps the filling thick. Wet pulp can make the custard loose or watery once baked. Stirring to prevent sticking or scorching also protects the flavour.

Swap the pumpkin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, ginger, allspice, whisky, butter, egg, sugar):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, ginger, allspice, whisky, butter, egg, sugar. 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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