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Dessert

Carrot Pie

A sweet pie made with mashed boiled carrots, milk, spices, egg, and sugar in a pie crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and ginger 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 ↓

Carrot Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the filling

  1. Mash the boiled carrots thoroughly.

  2. In a bowl, combine the mashed carrots, milk, salt, cinnamon, ginger, beaten egg, and sugar.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into the pie crust.

  2. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) until set.

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Carrot + gingertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Carrot + cinnamontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together981 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Cinnamon and sugar 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

Carrots
Provide the main bulk and body of the filling once mashed smooth.
Egg
Sets the custard-like filling as it bakes, giving it structure.
Milk
Adds moisture and richness, helping the filling bake into a creamy texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the spices.

The step that matters

Bake until set. The egg sets the filling as it heats. Baking gently in a slow oven helps the custard cook through evenly without curdling or cracking, so it firms rather than becoming watery or overcooked.

Swap the carrot

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

  1. Sweet potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Arrowrootfits about as well
  4. Carrotthe original

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