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Dessert

Pumpkin-pie

A baked pie made with mashed pumpkin, milk, eggs, sugar, salt, spices, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Pumpkin-pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Boil and mash the pumpkin as you would for squash pie.

  2. In a large bowl, combine the mashed pumpkin and milk.

  3. Add the beaten eggs, sugar, salt, mixed spices, and melted butter. Mix until smooth and well combined.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a pie crust and bake until set.

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

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

  2. Pumpkin + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).

  3. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Pumpkin
Provides the bulk, body and characteristic flavor of the filling.
Eggs
Set when heated, giving the filling its firm, sliceable structure.
Milk
Adds moisture and creaminess, and helps the custard set smoothly.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and contributes to browning at the edges.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving a smoother mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Bake until set. Eggs set as they heat, so underbaking leaves a runny center while overbaking can make the custard curdle, weep or crack. Bake only until the center barely jiggles.

Swap the pumpkin

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

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

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