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Dessert

Carrot Pies

A pie made with boiled carrots, sugar, spices, eggs, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 ↓

Carrot Pies

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 the filling

  1. Boil the carrots until very tender.

  2. Skin and sift the boiled carrots.

  3. Mix the sifted carrots with sugar and spices to taste.

  4. Beat the eggs in a separate bowl.

  5. Mix the beaten eggs with 1 quart of milk.

  6. Boil the milk mixture.

  7. Let the boiled milk cool before adding it to the carrot mixture.

Bake

  1. Combine all ingredients and pour into a pie crust.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 15 to 20 minutes.

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 + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Allspice + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Carrot + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,021 recipes

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

  5. Carrot + cinnamontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together981 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

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

What each ingredient does

Carrots
Provide the bulk and body of the filling, giving it a smooth, sliceable texture once sifted.
Eggs
Set the custard as they cook, giving the pie structure and a firm texture.
Milk
Adds moisture and richness, and helps form a smooth, tender custard with the eggs.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the earthy flavor of the carrots.

The step that matters

Cooling the boiled milk before combining. Adding hot milk to beaten eggs can scramble them, creating curdled specks instead of a smooth custard. Letting the milk cool first helps the eggs set evenly when baked.

Swap the carrot

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

  1. Sweet potatofits better
  2. Arrowrootfits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Carrotthe original

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