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Dessert

Pumpkin Pie

A custard pie made with baked pumpkin, milk, sugar, eggs, and spices, baked 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: Ginger and cinnamon 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 ↓

Pumpkin Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the pumpkin

  1. Cut the pumpkin in half, remove the seeds, and cut into moderately small pieces.

  2. Bake the pumpkin until done, then scrape the flesh from the shell and press it through a colander.

Make and bake the pie

  1. In a bowl, combine the mashed pumpkin, milk, sugar, beaten eggs, salt, ginger, and cinnamon.

  2. Pour the mixture into a pie plate lined with pie crust.

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon 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

Pumpkin
Forms the main body of the filling and gives its flavor and color.
Eggs
Set when baked, giving the custard-like filling its structure.
Milk
Adds moisture and richness, and helps the filling become smooth and creamy.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the spices.
Ground ginger
Adds warm, spicy aroma to the filling.
Ground cinnamon
Adds warm, sweet aroma to the filling.

The step that matters

Bake slowly at 300°F (150°C) until set. Eggs thicken as they heat, so baking gently helps the filling set evenly and stay smooth. Baking too hot can cause it to puff, crack, or curdle.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Gingerthe original
  4. Clovefits about as well

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