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Dessert

Pumpkin Pie

A custard pie made with stewed pumpkin, cream, eggs, sugar, molasses, spices, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon 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 Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. In a bowl, mix the flour with a little milk until smooth.

  2. Stir the smooth flour into the stewed pumpkin.

  3. Add the sugar, molasses, spices, and salt.

  4. Beat the eggs thoroughly and add them to the mixture.

  5. Finally, fold in the cream.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into pie crusts and bake.

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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Ginger + cinnamontop 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. Nutmeg + gingertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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 custard as they cook, giving the pie its firm body.
Stewed pumpkin
Provides the main bulk, moisture and flavor of the filling.
Flour
Thickens the filling so it holds its shape when cut.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps soften the texture of the custard.
Cream
Adds richness and fat, producing a smoother, silkier filling.
Molasses
Adds deep sweetness and a dark color to the filling.

The step that matters

Beat the eggs thoroughly. Well-beaten eggs blend evenly through the filling so the custard sets smoothly without streaks or pockets of unset egg. Overbaking can still curdle or crack the set custard, so bake only until the center barely wobbles.

Swap the pumpkin

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, egg, sugar, molasses, nutmeg, ginger, 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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