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Dessert

Pumpkin Pie

A baked pie with a pumpkin filling spiced with cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, allspice, cloves, and sweetened with molasses and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 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 crust

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

  2. In a bowl, mix 1 cup flour, 1 tablespoon cinnamon, and 1 tablespoon flour.

  3. Add 2 tablespoons lard and 3 tablespoons water to form a dough.

  4. Roll out the dough and line pie pans.

Make the filling

  1. In another bowl, mix ¾ cup sugar, ginger, nutmeg, allspice, and cloves.

  2. Add 2 cups stewed pumpkin and 2 cups milk to the sugar mixture.

  3. Beat the egg yolks and mix them in.

  4. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff and fold them into the mixture.

Bake

  1. Pour the filling into the prepared pie crusts.

  2. Bake for about 45 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. Cinnamon + pumpkintop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,744 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Pumpkin + gingertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,158 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Cinnamon + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Forms the dough's structure so the crust holds its shape when rolled and baked.
Lard
Fat coats flour proteins, keeping the crust tender and flaky rather than tough.
Eggs
Proteins set as the filling bakes, giving the pie its firm, sliceable body.
Stewed pumpkin
Supplies most of the filling's moisture and bulk, along with its earthy flavor.
Milk
Adds liquid and dairy richness, helping the custard set softly and stay creamy.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and balances the spices and the savory pumpkin flavor.

The step that matters

Folding in the stiffly beaten egg whites. Stiff whites trap air that gives the filling lift. Folding gently keeps that air in; vigorous stirring deflates the whites and leaves a denser pie.

Swap the pumpkin

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

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

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