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Dessert

Pumpkin Pie

A custard pie made with pumpkin, milk, eggs, sugar, spices, and optional brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

Pumpkin Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the pumpkin

  1. Select a fine grain pumpkin, cut it up, and stew with almost no water, then run the pumpkin through a colander.

Make the filling

  1. In a bowl, combine 1 cup of pumpkin, 2 cups of rich milk, 1 egg, ¾ cup of sugar, 1 teaspoon of salt, ½ cup of melted butter, 1 teaspoon of cinnamon, ½ teaspoon of ginger, ¼ teaspoon of nutmeg, and 1 teaspoon of cloves. Mix well and add brandy if desired.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a deep pie plate lined with a bottom crust.

  2. Bake at 400°F (200°C) until the pie puffs in the center and turns slightly brown.

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. Cinnamon + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Pumpkin + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,744 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Pumpkin
Provides the bulk and body of the filling, along with moisture and flavor.
Egg
Sets the custard as it bakes, giving the filling structure.
Rich milk
Adds liquid and richness, and helps the filling set into a smooth custard.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps it brown lightly at the edges.
Melted butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, tender texture.

The step that matters

Stewing the pumpkin with almost no water. Pumpkin holds a lot of water, and excess moisture dilutes the filling and keeps the egg-milk custard from setting firmly. Cooking it down and straining it concentrates the flavor and gives a thicker, smoother pie.

Swap the pumpkin

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

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

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