Skip to main content
Dessert

Pumpkin Pie

A sweet pie made with pumpkin, molasses, cream, milk, sugar, eggs, salt, cinnamon, and ginger.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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

Make the filling

  1. Combine pumpkin and molasses in a pot.

  2. Boil for 15 minutes.

  3. Add cream and milk.

  4. Boil for an additional 15 minutes.

  5. Stir in sugar, eggs, salt, cinnamon, and ginger until well combined.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a pie crust.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  5. Milk + cinnamontop 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

Pumpkin
Provides the main body and flavor of the filling.
Eggs
Set the custard as they cook, giving the pie its firm texture.
Molasses
Adds depth, color, and a caramel-like sweetness.
Milk
Adds moisture and richness, helping the filling set smoothly.
Cream
Adds fat for a richer, silkier texture.

The step that matters

Bake until set. Egg proteins coagulate as the filling heats, so the pie must be baked until the center is just set. Overbaking can make the custard curdle, weep, or crack.

Swap the pumpkin

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

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

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

More pumpkin pie recipes

Eggless 15Filling 8 See all 403 →

You might also like

Ginger CookiesGinger Cookies213 recipesMolasses CookiesMolasses Cookies96 recipesGinger CakeGinger Cake93 recipesMolasses CakeMolasses Cake90 recipes