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Dessert

Pumpkin Pie

A pie made from boiled pumpkin, sugar, molasses, eggs, spices, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,380 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Pumpkin Pie

5 to 6 pies

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pumpkin

  1. Wash and boil the pumpkin with the skins on until thoroughly cooked.

  2. Pass the cooked pumpkin through a sieve to remove lumps and seeds.

Make the filling

  1. In a bowl, mix the sugar and molasses together.

  2. Thoroughly beat the eggs and mix them with the pumpkin.

  3. Add the sugar and molasses mixture, salt, ginger, cinnamon, and milk; mix well.

  4. This mixture makes 5 to 6 pies. Adjust milk if the pumpkin is smaller.

Bake

  1. Bake in deep pie plates lined with firm pastry.

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 + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 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. Pumpkin + gingertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,158 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Cinnamon + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon 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
Forms the bulk of the filling and supplies most of its moisture and body.
Eggs
Set the custard as they cook, giving the pie its firm, sliceable structure.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the filling brown slightly while baking.
Molasses
Adds deep sweetness, dark colour and a rich, slightly bitter flavour.
Milk
Adds moisture and richness, softening the set custard texture.

The step that matters

Cook and sieve the pumpkin thoroughly. Pumpkin that is undercooked or left lumpy and watery makes the filling loose and grainy. Eggs set the custard evenly only when the base is smooth and not diluted with extra liquid.

Swap the pumpkin

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

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

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