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Dried Pumpkin

Pumpkin preserved by stewing, drying, and soaking after sweetening with sugar and molasses.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and molasses are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,225 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Dried Pumpkin

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 the mixture

  1. Mash the cooked pumpkin until fine.

  2. Add sugar and molasses to the pumpkin and mix well.

Dry the pumpkin

  1. Stew the mixture on the back of the stove until quite dry.

  2. Grease shallow pans and spread the mixture in an inch thick layer.

  3. Dry in the oven at 300°F (150°C).

Store and use

  1. Store in paper bags to keep clean.

  2. When ready to use, soak the dried pumpkin overnight.

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. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Pumpkin + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,350 recipes

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

  3. Pumpkin + molassestop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together240 recipes

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

What each ingredient does

Pumpkin
Forms the bulk of the dish, and its moisture is driven off during stewing and drying.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the dried pumpkin taste rich.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, deep flavor, and a darker color to the pumpkin.

The step that matters

Spreading the mixture in an even layer. A layer of uniform thickness dries at a consistent rate, so thick spots do not stay moist and spoil while thin spots over-dry. Stewing it until quite dry first also reduces the moisture the oven must remove.

Swap the pumpkin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, molasses):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, molasses. 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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