Skip to main content
Dessert

Pumpkin Pie

A baked pie with a filling of mashed pumpkin, sugar, butter, brandy or sherry, lemon juice, nutmeg, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Lemon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Pumpkin Pie

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

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the filling

  1. In a bowl, mix the mashed pumpkin, sugar, butter, brandy or sherry, lemon juice, nutmeg, and salt until well combined.

Assemble and bake

  1. Line a large pie plate with the flaky pastry dough.

  2. Spread the pumpkin mixture evenly over the pastry.

  3. Cover with another layer of rolled thin pastry, pressing the edges together with a spoon.

  4. Brush the top with milk or beaten egg.

  5. Bake for 1 hour until golden brown.

  6. Serve hot.

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. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

  3. Pumpkin + nutmegtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,126 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).

  5. Lemon + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Mashed pumpkin
Forms the set custard-like filling that gives the pie its body.
Eggs
Not listed in the record; omitted.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the filling brown during baking.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother, softer texture.
Flaky pastry dough
Forms the crust that holds the filling and bakes crisp and golden.

The step that matters

Pressing the top pastry edges together. Sealing the edges keeps the moist pumpkin filling enclosed so it cooks evenly and the crust does not leak or turn soggy.

Swap the pumpkin

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, brandy, lemon, nutmeg, 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.

More pumpkin pie recipes

Eggless 15Filling 8 See all 403 →

You might also like

Lemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipesBrandy PeachesBrandy Peaches68 recipes