Skip to main content
Dessert

Pumpkin-pie

A baked pie filled with a mixture of sugar, stewed pumpkin, sweet milk, eggs, ginger, nutmeg, and lemon peel.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Ginger and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,154 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Pumpkin-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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the filling

  1. In a bowl, mix together the sugar, stewed pumpkin, sweet milk, and eggs until well combined.

  2. Add ginger, nutmeg, and lemon peel to taste.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a pie crust.

  2. Bake in the preheated oven until set, about 45 minutes.

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 + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,154 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Ginger + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Pumpkin + nutmegtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,126 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
Set the custard as they cook, giving the filling structure and a firm slice.
Stewed pumpkin
Provides the bulk, moisture and flavour base of the filling.
Sweet milk
Adds liquid and richness, helping the filling become smooth and custard-like.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps balance the flavour of the spices.

The step that matters

Bake until set. Eggs thicken the filling as they heat. Pulling the pie too early leaves it runny, while overbaking can cause cracking and a grainy texture.

Swap the pumpkin

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

  1. Orangefits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Limefits better
  4. Pumpkinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, milk, egg, ginger, nutmeg, lemon. 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.

More pumpkin pie recipes

Eggless 15Filling 8 See all 403 →

You might also like

Lemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesGinger CookiesGinger Cookies213 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipes