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Dessert

Pumpkin Pie

A baked pie with a pumpkin custard filling and sweet cream topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pumpkin and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,744 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. 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.

Prepare the filling

  1. Cook the pumpkin until soft, then press it through a sieve.

  2. In a bowl, beat the eggs well and stir them into the milk.

  3. Gradually add the sifted pumpkin to the egg and milk mixture.

  4. Add the coconut butter or olive oil, salt, ground cinnamon, and sugar to taste.

Bake and finish

  1. Pour the mixture into a pie crust and bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven.

  2. Once done, remove from the oven and spread a generous amount of well-beaten thick sweet cream and powdered sugar over each pie.

  3. Return to the oven until a delicate brown film forms, then remove and let cool.

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

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

  2. Coconut + cinnamontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together979 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

  3. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Milk + coconuttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,648 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Cinnamon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Eggs
Set the custard as they cook, giving the pie its firm, sliceable structure.
Pumpkin
Provides the bulk, moisture and flavour of the filling.
Milk
Adds liquid and richness, forming the custard base with the eggs.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the top brown lightly in the oven.
Coconut butter or olive oil
Adds fat, which gives the filling a softer, smoother texture.

The step that matters

Bake until just set. Egg proteins set with heat, so the custard firms as it bakes. Overbaking tightens the proteins too far, causing the filling to crack, weep or turn grainy.

Swap the coconut

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Datesfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Coconutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pumpkin, milk, egg, cinnamon, sugar. 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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