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Dessert

Squash Pie

A baked pie made with squash, sugar, butter, milk, egg, and cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Squash Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the squash

  1. Bake a good, mealy squash.

  2. Scrape the meat from the rind after baking.

Make the filling

  1. Add beaten egg, sugar, milk, butter, and cinnamon; beat well.

Bake and serve

  1. Add a little sugar and butter on top before baking.

  2. Bake with an under crust until browned nicely on top.

  3. Sprinkle with cinnamon.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Butter + cinnamontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,784 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

Squash
Forms the body of the pie, giving it its bulk and mealy, sweet flavour.
Egg
Binds the filling and helps it set firm when baked.
Milk
Adds moisture and creaminess to the filling.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender texture.
White sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps the top brown.
Cinnamon
Adds warm, aromatic spice flavour.

The step that matters

Add beaten egg, sugar, milk, butter, and cinnamon; beat well.. The egg must be fully blended into the squash so the filling sets evenly when baked. Unmixed egg can leave streaks or pockets of uneven texture.

“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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