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Dessert

Pumpkin or Squash Pie

A baked pie with a filling of pumpkin or squash puree, eggs, milk, sugar, and spices, lined with puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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 and remove the inside, then peel off the skin and cut the squash into thin chips.

  2. Place the chips in a saucepan with ½ cup of cold water and cook over low heat until soft and water is evaporated.

  3. Press the cooked squash through a wire sieve and measure 1 quart.

Make the filling

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

  2. In another bowl, beat the egg yolks and sugar together, then stir into the pumpkin mixture.

  3. Stir in the milk.

  4. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites with 2 tablespoons of sugar until stiff, then fold into the mixture.

Bake and serve

  1. Grease deep pie plates, line with puff pastry, and pour in the filling.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for about 30 minutes or until light brown.

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 and whites, whipped stiff, lighten the filling.
Pumpkin or squash puree
Provides the bulk, moisture and body of the pie filling.
Rich sweet milk
Adds liquid and richness, helping the filling set smoothly when baked.
White granulated sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps tenderize the custard.
Puff pastry
Forms the crisp, flaky shell that holds the liquid filling.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whites beaten until stiff trap air that gives lightness; overmixing or deflating them while folding makes the pie dense.

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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