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Dessert

Pumpkin Pudding

A baked pumpkin custard with butter, milk, ginger, nutmeg, brandy, and sugar, served in a pastry crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,324 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Pumpkin Pudding

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 filling

  1. Stew the pumpkin until soft and dry, then rub it through a sieve.

  2. Mix the pumpkin pulp with the eggs until light.

  3. Add the butter, milk, ginger, nutmeg, brandy, and sugar; combine well.

  4. If the mixture is too liquid, stew it a little longer until drier.

Assemble and bake

  1. Prepare a pastry crust around the edges and bottom of a shallow dish.

  2. Pour the pumpkin mixture into the dish.

  3. Cut thin strips of pastry, twist them, and lay them across the top.

  4. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until nicely done.

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 + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Butter + milktop 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 + nutmegtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,126 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Pumpkin + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).

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 filling and gives it its body and flavour.
Eggs
Set the custard as they cook, giving the filling structure and a firm texture.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, contributing a smoother, tender mouthfeel.
Milk
Adds moisture and dilutes the filling so it cooks into a soft custard.
Brandy
Adds aroma and flavour depth to the filling.

The step that matters

Drying the pumpkin. Pumpkin holds a lot of water. If the pulp stays wet, the filling will be loose and may not set firmly when baked, so stewing it until dry matters.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Clovefits about as well
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pumpkin, egg, butter, milk, nutmeg, brandy, 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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