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Dessert

Pumpkin or Squash Pie

A custard pie made with pumpkin or squash, milk, eggs, sugar, spices, and baked in puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Pumpkin or Squash 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 the squash

  1. Cut the squash into rings half an inch wide.

  2. Remove the inside of the rings.

  3. Peel the skin of the squash.

  4. Cut the squash into thin chips.

  5. Place the chips in a saucepan with ½ cup of cold water.

  6. Cook the chips over low heat until soft and the water is evaporated.

  7. Press the cooked squash through a wire sieve.

  8. Measure out 1 quart of the pressed squash.

Make the filling

  1. In a bowl, mix the pumpkin puree, spices, and salt.

  2. Beat the egg yolks and sugar together.

  3. Stir the beaten yolks and sugar into the pumpkin mixture.

  4. Add the milk to the mixture and mix well.

  5. Beat the egg whites with 2 tablespoons of sugar until stiff.

  6. Fold the stiff egg whites into the pumpkin mixture.

Bake and serve

  1. Grease deep pie plates and line them with puff pastry.

  2. Pour the filling into the prepared pie plates.

  3. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until light brown, about 30 minutes.

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 + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Winter squash + cinnamontop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together21 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Winter squash + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Winter squash + pumpkintop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together40 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Yolks thicken the custard as it sets, and whipped whites lighten the filling.
Milk
Adds moisture and creaminess, and its proteins help the custard set.
Pumpkin or squash puree
Forms the body of the filling and supplies moisture and flavour.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the whites hold their stiff structure.
Cinnamon
Adds warm aroma to the spiced filling.

The step that matters

Fold the stiff egg whites into the pumpkin mixture. Whipped egg whites trap air that gives lightness. Folding gently keeps that air in, while stirring hard deflates the foam and leaves a denser pie.

Swap the winter squash

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Winter squashthe original
  4. Lemonfits about as well

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