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Pumpkin Fanchonnettes

Pastry rounds shaped over cake tins and filled with spiced pumpkin custard, then topped with meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 Fanchonnettes

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the filling

  1. Heat the pumpkin in a saucepan.

  2. In a bowl, mix the flour, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, salt, and sugar.

  3. Add the dry mixture to the pumpkin, then stir in the butter and milk.

  4. Beat the egg yolks and mix them in, reserving the egg whites for meringue.

Bake the shells

  1. Roll out pastry and cut into rounds to fit over inverted individual cake tins or gem pans.

  2. Butter the pastry rounds and bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until golden.

Fill and finish

  1. Remove from molds and fill with the pumpkin mixture, which should be cooked and partially cooled.

  2. Top with meringue made from the reserved egg whites and finish baking in a 350°F (175°C) oven until the meringue is 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 + 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 bulk, moisture and flavour of the filling.
Eggs
Egg yolks thicken the filling, and whites form the meringue topping.
Flour
Thickens the pumpkin filling so it holds its shape when sliced.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness to the filling.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps the meringue become glossy and stable.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the filling and browning to the pastry.

The step that matters

Cooling the pumpkin filling before topping. The filling should be cooked and only partly cooled before it goes into the shells. Pouring in hot filling can soften the pastry, while a cold filling may not set evenly under the meringue. Keeping the meringue in its own bake lets it set without overbaking the custard-like filling.

Swap the pumpkin

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg, flour, butter, cinnamon, ginger, 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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