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Dessert

Pumpkin Pie

A baked pie made with pumpkin, eggs, sugar, spices, milk, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 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 pumpkin

  1. Cut the pumpkin.

  2. Boil until soft.

  3. Drain and mash until smooth.

Make the filling

  1. Beat eggs and sugar together.

  2. Add mashed pumpkin, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger to the egg mixture.

  3. Scald the milk and add it to the mixture while warm.

  4. Beat everything together.

  5. Stir in the brandy.

Bake and serve

  1. Line pie plates with pie crust.

  2. Fill with pumpkin mixture.

  3. Bake at 350°F for 30 to 40 minutes until firm.

  4. Serve ice-cold.

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. Pumpkin + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,744 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  4. Nutmeg + gingertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Pumpkin + gingertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,158 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

Pumpkin
Forms the body of the filling and gives the pie its flavour and moisture.
Eggs
Set during baking to give the filling its firm, sliceable structure.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps tenderise the custard.
Milk
Adds moisture and richness, helping create a smooth, creamy custard.

The step that matters

Bake until firm. Egg proteins set as the filling heats, so underbaking leaves a runny centre while overbaking can crack the surface and make the custard grainy. Check that the centre is just set and wobbles slightly.

Swap the pumpkin

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

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

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