Skip to main content
Dessert

Pumpkin Pudding

A baked pumpkin custard with spices, butter, sugar, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Pumpkin Pudding

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

  1. Steam the pumpkin until tender, then pass it through a sieve and measure.

Make and bake

  1. Add the remaining ingredients in the order given, beating the eggs well before adding. Mix thoroughly and pour into a buttered baking dish.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 40 to 45 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve hot or cold with whipped cream or cream and sugar.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Pumpkin + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,744 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  5. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Pumpkin
Provides the bulk and moisture that give the pudding its soft, sliceable body.
Eggs
Set when baked, giving the pudding its structure and firm yet tender texture.
Cream
Adds richness and fat, producing a smoother, more tender custard texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the spices and the savoury pumpkin flavour.
Butter
Adds fat and flavour and keeps the baking dish from sticking to the pudding.

The step that matters

Beating the eggs well before adding. Thoroughly beaten eggs blend evenly into the pumpkin and cream, so the pudding sets with a uniform texture rather than streaks of unmixed egg.

Swap the pumpkin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lemon, cream, cinnamon, butter, clove, sugar, nutmeg):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, cream, cinnamon, butter, clove, sugar, 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.

You might also like

Lemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipesCinnamon RollsCinnamon Rolls71 recipes