Name: Pumpkin or Squash Pie
Ingredients: 3 pints of pumpkin, cooked and strained; 2 large eggs; 2 cups of sugar; 1 teaspoon of ginger; 1 teaspoon of cinnamon; 1 tablespoon of butter; 1 quart of sweet milk

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 or Squash Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

Cook the pumpkin until soft and strain it.
In a large bowl, combine the strained pumpkin, eggs, sugar, ginger, cinnamon, and melted butter.
Stir in the sweet milk until well mixed.

Bake

Pour the mixture into a pie crust and bake.

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.

Ginger + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,380 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Pumpkin + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,744 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Pumpkin + gingertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,158 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Cinnamon + milktop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,655 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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 the pie its body and flavor.
Eggs: Set the custard as they cook, giving the filling structure.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and helps balance the spices.
Sweet milk: Adds moisture and richness, and helps the filling set into a smooth custard.
Butter: Adds fat for richness and a smoother texture.

The step that matters

Baking the filling. Egg-based custards set as proteins coagulate with heat. Bake until the center barely jiggles, because overbaking can make the filling curdle, weep, or crack.

Swap the ginger

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

Nutmegfits better
Cardamomfits better
Gingerthe original
Clovefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against pumpkin, egg, sugar, cinnamon, butter, 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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Pumpkin or Squash Pie