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Dessert

Pumpkin Pie

A custard pie made with pumpkin, milk, butter, sugar, molasses, spices, and eggs.

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

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Mix ginger and cinnamon with a little pumpkin until smooth.

  2. Add the boiling milk to the mixture, then stir in the pumpkin and boil for 15 minutes.

  3. Beat the eggs until light and stir them in, but do not boil.

Fill the crust

  1. Pour the mixture into a pie crust while hot.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Mace + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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 when gently heated, giving the filling structure and a smooth, sliceable texture.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness, helping the filling become creamy.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture while contributing to the filling's color.
Dark molasses
Adds deep sweetness, color and a rich, caramel-like flavor.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother mouthfeel in the filling.

The step that matters

Stir in the eggs without boiling. Egg proteins set when heated, so overheating beaten eggs can scramble them and leave the filling grainy instead of smooth and custard-like.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pumpkin, milk, butter, sugar, molasses, ginger, 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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