Name: Pumpkin Pie
Ingredients: 1 pint well stewed and strained pumpkin; 1 quart scalding rich milk; 1½ cups sugar; 4 eggs; 1 teaspoon salt; 1 tablespoon ginger; 1 tablespoon cinnamon

Why it works: Ginger and cinnamon 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 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
In a large bowl, combine the pumpkin, scalding milk, sugar, eggs, salt, ginger, and cinnamon.
Mix well until fully combined.
Pour the mixture into a pie crust and bake immediately.

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.

Ginger + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,380 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Pumpkin + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,744 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Pumpkin + gingertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,158 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,655 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together30,779 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

Swap the ginger

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

Nutmegfits better
Cardamomfits better
Gingerthe original
Clovefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against pumpkin, milk, sugar, egg, cinnamon. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.