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Dessert

Pumpkin Pie

A baked pie with a pumpkin custard filling flavored with spices, lemon, and liquor.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon 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

Prepare the pumpkin

  1. Peel and boil the pumpkin with just enough water to prevent burning for about 30 minutes until tender.

  2. Drain the pumpkin well and mash it through a colander or coarse sieve.

Make the filling

  1. Bring the milk to a boil and blend the flour with a little cold water.

  2. Stir the flour mixture into the boiling milk and cook for about 3 minutes until thick.

  3. In a bowl, mix the thickened milk with the hot pumpkin.

  4. Add the spices, sugar, lemon peel, juice, liquor, and lastly the eggs mixed smooth with a little cold water.

Bake and serve

  1. Prepare your pie dishes lined with very thin pastry, adding 1 or 2 extra layers to the edges.

  2. Pour the mixture into the pastry, ensuring it is nearly 1 inch deep.

  3. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes.

  4. Brush the edges with a little egg and return to the oven until nicely browned.

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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Ginger + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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 moisture.
Eggs
Set the mixture as it bakes, giving the filling structure and firmness.
Flour
Thickens the milk so the filling becomes smooth and holds its shape.
Milk
Makes the filling creamy and adds richness and softness.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother, more tender texture.

The step that matters

Adding the eggs. Eggs must be mixed smooth with a little cold water and added last, after the filling has cooled somewhat. Adding them to a very hot mixture can cause them to scramble, leaving lumps in the custard-like filling.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Cardamomfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Clovefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pumpkin, flour, butter, nutmeg, ginger, cinnamon, 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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