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Dessert

Squash Pie

A baked pie made with Hubbard squash, sugar, eggs, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,324 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Squash Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the squash

  1. Cut the Hubbard squash in half, scrape out the seeds, and peel it.

  2. Place the squash in a saucepan, cover with salt water, and mash until fine.

Make the filling

  1. In a bowl, beat the egg yolk with sugar, ground ginger, salt, and hot milk, stirring constantly.

  2. Add butter, hot mashed squash, flour, and grated nutmeg to the mixture and beat well.

  3. Fold in the beaten egg white until combined.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a pie pan and sprinkle brown sugar on top.

  2. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 10 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 + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  3. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Hubbard squash
Provides the main body and sweet, earthy flavour of the pie filling.
Egg yolk
Enriches the custard and helps it set into a smooth, firm texture.
Egg white
Beaten in at the end to lighten the filling and add some rise.
Milk
Adds moisture and richness, softening the filling into a custard.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps the top brown in the oven.
Flour
Thickens the filling slightly so it holds its shape when set.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg white. Beaten egg white traps air that gives lightness; overmixing or deflating it while folding makes the filling dense and less airy.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Gingerthe original

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