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Dessert

Squash Pie

A pie filled with squash, maple sugar, eggs, and allspice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 122,807 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Squash 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.

Make the filling

  1. Dissolve the maple sugar in a little water.

  2. Stir the strained squash into the sugar mixture.

  3. Add the eggs and allspice, mixing well.

Bake

  1. Pour the filling into the pie crust.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°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. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Sugar + allspicetop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,938 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  3. Egg + allspicetop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

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

What each ingredient does

Maple sugar
Adds sweetness and helps give the filling its rich flavor.
Strained squash
Provides the main body, moisture and flavor of the filling.
Eggs
Set as they heat, giving the cooked filling its firm, sliceable structure.
Pie crust
Holds the liquid filling in shape while it bakes.
Allspice
Adds warm, aromatic spice flavor to the filling.

The step that matters

Bake until set. Egg proteins coagulate as they heat, which firms the filling. Underbaking leaves it runny, while overbaking can make the eggs weep, curdle or crack. Remove it when the center is just barely set.

Swap the allspice

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Gingerfits better
  4. Allspicethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, 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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