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Dessert

Squash Pie

A pie made with squash, nut milk, egg, sugar, and salt in a crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and peanut are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,048 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓

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 nut milk

  1. Prepare nut milk by cooking 2 cups of raw peanuts in a double boiler for 1 hour.

  2. Alternatively, dissolve 1 tablespoon of peanut butter in 1 quart of water and cook in a double boiler for 1 hour.

Make the filling

  1. In a bowl, combine the cooked squash, nut milk, egg, sugar, and salt.

  2. Pour the mixture into a pie crust.

Bake

  1. Bake at 350°F (175°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. Milk + peanuttop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,048 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  2. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Peanut + sugartop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,545 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Squash
Provides the bulk and smooth, thick body of the filling.
Nut milk
Supplies the liquid that gives the filling its pourable, creamy base.
Egg
Sets the filling as it bakes, giving it a firm, sliceable structure.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and adds moisture to its texture.

The step that matters

Bake until set. The egg proteins coagulate as the filling heats, which thickens it. Baking too long tightens them further, causing weeping and a grainy texture, while stopping too early leaves the filling runny.

Swap the peanut

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

  1. Pecansfits better
  2. Almondfits better
  3. Cocoafits about as well
  4. Peanutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg, 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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