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Dessert

Pumpkin Pie

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

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

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the filling

  1. Combine pumpkin, milk, butter, sugar, cinnamon, salt, ginger, and nutmeg in a saucepan.

  2. Heat until steaming, then remove from heat.

  3. Stir in the beaten eggs until light and frothy.

Bake

  1. Line two pie tins with pastry and fill with the mixture.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for 10 minutes.

  3. Reduce heat to 350°F (175°C) and bake until well puffed.

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 + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Pumpkin + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,744 recipes

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

  4. Ginger + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Pumpkin
Provides the main body, flavor and moisture of the filling.
Eggs
Set the custard as they cook, giving the filling structure and a light, frothy texture.
Milk
Adds moisture and creaminess, and helps the filling set smoothly.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and contributes to browning at the edges.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, tender texture.

The step that matters

Stir in the beaten eggs until light and frothy. Eggs thicken the filling when heated, so the custard needs to be warm but not boiling when they are added, or the eggs can scramble and the texture turns grainy.

Swap the pumpkin

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, sugar, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, 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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