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Dessert

Pumpkin Pie

A custard pie made with stewed pumpkin, eggs, milk, sugar, and optional flour or molasses.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and molasses are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,225 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Pumpkin Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pumpkin

  1. Cut the pumpkin in half and remove the seeds.

  2. Slice the pumpkin.

  3. Stew the pumpkin until dry and soft, then mash it until smooth.

Make the filling

  1. In a bowl, beat the eggs and sugar together.

  2. Stir in the mashed pumpkin.

  3. Add the milk and mix well.

  4. Pour the mixture into the under crust.

Bake

  1. Bake until the custard is 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. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Pumpkin + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).

  4. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Eggs
Set the custard as they cook, giving the filling structure.
Pumpkin
Provides the main body, moisture and flavour of the filling.
Milk
Adds liquid that cooks with the eggs into a smooth custard.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the flavour of the pumpkin.

The step that matters

Bake until the custard is set. Eggs thicken as their proteins coagulate with heat. Underbaking leaves a runny filling, while overbaking can make it curdle or crack.

Swap the pumpkin

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, milk, flour, molasses. 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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