Skip to main content
Dessert

Pumpkin Pie

A custard pie made from stewed pumpkin, butter, milk, spices, sugar, and eggs, baked in a pie crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Clove and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,038 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Pumpkin Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Cook the pumpkin

  1. Place pumpkin pieces in a stewing pan with enough water to prevent burning. Cover and stew slowly for about 30 minutes or until tender.

  2. If water remains, lift the lid to allow it to evaporate.

  3. Press the pumpkin through a colander and add ¼ cup of butter while hot.

Make the filling

  1. Once cooled, mix in ¼ teaspoon of coarse sea salt, 1 pint of milk, ½ teaspoon of ground mace, ½ teaspoon of ground cloves, 1 teaspoon of ground ginger, and ½ cup of sugar.

  2. Beat 4 eggs until light and stir them into the mixture. Let it sit for about 30 minutes.

  3. Optionally, add ⅓ cup of brandy to the mixture.

Bake

  1. Fill the lined pie plates with the mixture and bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for about 35 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. Clove + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Butter + milktop 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 + gingertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,152 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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 flavor.
Eggs
Set the custard as they cook, giving the filling its structure.
Milk
Adds moisture and richness, helping the filling become smooth and creamy.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the spices.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother texture.

The step that matters

Cooking the pumpkin until tender and drying it. Excess water left in the pumpkin dilutes the custard and can make the baked filling soggy or slow to set. Cooking until tender and letting remaining water evaporate concentrates the flavor and gives a thick, smooth filling.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pumpkin, butter, milk, clove, ginger, sugar, egg. 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

Ginger CookiesGinger Cookies213 recipesGinger CakeGinger Cake93 recipesSoft Ginger BreadSoft Ginger Bread85 recipesSoft Ginger CakeSoft Ginger Cake56 recipes