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Dessert

Pumpkin Pie

A custard pie made with eggs, pumpkin puree, heavy cream, sugar, and cinnamon, baked until set.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Pumpkin and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,744 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Pumpkin Pie

two pies

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 filling

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

  2. In a large bowl, beat the eggs.

  3. Add the pumpkin and sugar, and stir until combined.

  4. Gradually beat in the cream.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into pie crusts to make two pies.

  2. Bake until set, about 45-50 minutes.

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

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

  2. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  5. Pumpkin + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,350 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set the filling into a firm custard as they cook.
Pumpkin puree
Provides the bulk, moisture and main flavor of the filling.
Heavy cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky texture to the custard.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and balances the pumpkin's earthiness.

The step that matters

Baking until set. Eggs thicken the filling as they cook, so the pie must be baked until the center is just set. Underbaking leaves a runny custard, while overbaking can cause cracking and a grainy, weeping texture.

Swap the pumpkin

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Pumpkinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, cream, sugar, cinnamon. 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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