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Dessert

Pijmpkix Pie

A baked pie made with stewed pumpkin, eggs, milk, spices, sugar, and wine or brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Pijmpkix 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

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a large bowl, beat the egg whites and yolks separately.

Make the filling

  1. Combine the pumpkin, milk, cinnamon, nutmeg, sugar, and wine or brandy in the bowl. Mix all ingredients well.

  2. Pour the mixture into a pie crust without a cover.

Bake

  1. Bake 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 + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 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 + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Pumpkin + nutmegtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,126 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

Cinnamon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Pumpkin
Provides the bulk, body and flavor base of the filling.
Eggs
Set during baking to give the filling its structure and firm slice.
Milk
Adds moisture and creaminess, helping the custard stay tender.
White sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps soften its texture.
Cinnamon
Contributes warm spice aroma and flavor.

The step that matters

Bake until set. Egg proteins coagulate as the filling heats, so underbaking leaves it runny while overbaking can make it cracked or grainy. Check that the center barely wobbles before removing it.

Swap the pumpkin

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, milk, cinnamon, nutmeg, sugar, wine. 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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