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Dessert

Pumpkin Pie Without Eggs

A custard-like pumpkin pie made with pumpkin, milk, corn starch, flour, and ginger, baked until set.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Pumpkin Pie Without Eggs

Why it works: Pumpkin and ginger are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,158 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Pumpkin Pie Without Eggs

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).

  2. In a large bowl, combine the strained pumpkin, milk, corn starch, flour, and ginger, and mix until smooth and well combined.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into pie crusts.

  2. Bake for 45-50 minutes or until set.

  3. Cool before serving.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  3. Corn + gingertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together412 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  4. Corn + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Pumpkin + corntop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together286 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Strained pumpkin
Provides the bulk, flavor and moisture of the filling.
Milk
Adds moisture and richness, and helps the filling set smoothly.
Corn starch
Thickens the filling and helps it set without eggs.
Flour
Adds additional thickening so the filling holds its shape when sliced.

The step that matters

Bake until set. Corn starch thickens as it heats and sets as it cools. Pulling the pie too early leaves the filling runny and it may not slice cleanly.

Swap the pumpkin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, corn, flour, ginger):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, corn, flour, ginger. 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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