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Dessert

Pumpkin and Squash Pie

A baked pie made with pumpkin or squash, milk, eggs, molasses or sugar, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,380 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Pumpkin and Squash Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA warm oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a warm oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the pumpkin

  1. Remove the seeds from the pumpkin or squash without scraping the inside.

  2. Stew the pumpkin until soft, then strain it through a sieve or colander.

Make the filling

  1. In a bowl, combine the strained pumpkin, milk, and beaten eggs until thick and smooth.

  2. For a richer pie, add more eggs and adjust the thickness as desired.

  3. Sweeten with molasses or sugar, then mix in salt, cinnamon, ginger, and lemon peel if using.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into deep plates or shallow dishes without a top crust.

  2. Bake in a warm oven at 350°F (175°C) for about 1 hour.

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 + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  3. Ginger + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,154 recipes

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

  4. Cinnamon + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Pumpkin or squash
Provides the main body and flavor of the filling once cooked and strained.
Eggs
Set when baked, giving the filling its structure and firm texture.
Milk
Adds moisture and creaminess, loosening the pumpkin into a smooth custard.
Molasses or sugar
Adds sweetness and depth, and helps the filling brown lightly in the oven.

The step that matters

Straining the cooked pumpkin. Pumpkin left unstrained holds extra water and fibre, which can make the filling loose, stringy, or slow to set. Straining gives a smooth, thick custard.

Swap the lemon

The recipe marks lemon as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pumpkin, milk, egg, molasses, cinnamon, ginger):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

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