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Dessert

Pumpkin Pie

A baked pie made with pumpkin, eggs, milk, and spices, baked in a crust.

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

Pumpkin Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Select a pumpkin with a deep rich color and firm texture.

  2. Stew and sift the pumpkin.

Make the filling

  1. For each pie, use 2 eggs and 3 to 4 quarts of milk.

  2. Add 2 teaspoons of ginger, 4 teaspoons of cinnamon, 12 teaspoons of allspice, 2 teaspoons of cloves, and 1 nutmeg.

Bake

  1. Bake in a pie crust without a cover at 300°F (150°C) 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 + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Pumpkin
Forms the bulk of the filling and gives the pie its body and flavor.
Eggs
Set when heated, giving the filling structure and a firm, sliceable texture.
Milk
Adds moisture and creaminess, and helps the filling bake into a smooth custard.
Ground cinnamon
Adds warm, sweet aroma and flavor to the filling.

The step that matters

Bake until set, not overbaked. Egg proteins coagulate as the filling heats, which sets the custard. Overbaking pushes the eggs too far, causing cracks, weeping, and a grainy texture.

Swap the pumpkin

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

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

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