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Dessert

Pumpkin and Squash Pie

A baked pie made with stewed pumpkin or squash, milk, eggs, spices, and sweetener.

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 filling

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

  2. Stew the pumpkin and strain it through a sieve or colander.

  3. In a bowl, combine the milk, eggs, and strained pumpkin until thick.

  4. Sweeten with molasses or sugar, then add salt, cinnamon, ginger, and lemon peel if using.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a deep or shallow pie dish.

  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

Eggs
Set the custard and give the filling its structure as it bakes.
Milk
Provides the liquid base and moisture that the eggs set into a custard.
Pumpkin or squash
Supplies the main body, moisture and flavor of the filling.
Molasses or sugar
Adds sweetness and depth to the filling.

The step that matters

Straining the stewed pumpkin. Stewed squash holds extra water and fibre; straining removes excess liquid and lumps, so the custard sets smooth and firm rather than watery or grainy.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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