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Dessert

Pumpkin Pie

A baked pie with stewed pumpkin, milk, eggs, butter, spices, and molasses.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 Pie

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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the filling

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a bowl, combine the stewed pumpkin, milk, eggs, butter, cinnamon, ginger, salt, and pepper. Mix well until smooth.

  3. Sweeten the mixture with molasses to your taste.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a pie crust and bake for 30-40 minutes or 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. 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. Walnut + cinnamontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

  5. Ginger + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,800 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set the filling into a firm custard as they cook.
Stewed pumpkin
Provides the bulk and body of the filling.
Milk
Adds moisture and creaminess to the filling.
Molasses
Adds sweetness and a deep, rich flavor.

The step that matters

Bake until set. Eggs thicken as they heat, so the pie is done when the center has just firmed. Overbaking can make the custard weep or crack, while underbaking leaves it runny.

Swap the pumpkin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, egg, butter, walnut, cinnamon, ginger, pepper):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg, butter, walnut, cinnamon, ginger, pepper. 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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