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Dessert

Pumpkin Pie

A baked pie made with boiled pumpkin, sugar, milk, eggs, spices, and brandy.

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

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pumpkin

  1. Boil and strain 2 quarts of pumpkin.

  2. Mash 1 pint of the strained pumpkin.

Make the filling

  1. In a bowl, beat together the butter and sugar until creamy.

  2. Add the mashed pumpkin, milk, and beaten eggs to the mixture. Stir in the cinnamon, mace, rosewater, and brandy.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a pie crust and 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. Pumpkin + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,744 recipes

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

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Cinnamon + macetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, 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

Pumpkin
Forms the bulk of the filling and provides moisture and body.
Eggs
Set during baking to give the filling its firm, sliceable structure.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the butter cream into a smooth base.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the filling a smooth, tender texture.
Milk
Adds liquid and softness, diluting the pumpkin to a pourable custard.

The step that matters

Bake until set. Egg proteins set as the filling heats, so underbaking leaves a runny center while overbaking can make it cracked and grainy. Watch for a center that just barely wobbles.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Clovefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pumpkin, butter, sugar, milk, egg, cinnamon, brandy. 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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