Skip to main content
Dessert

Pumpkin Pie

A baked pie made with cooked pumpkin, butter, milk, sugar, cream, eggs, rose water, wine, mace, cinnamon, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Pumpkin 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. Melt the butter in warm milk and mix in the sugar.

  2. In a large bowl, combine the pumpkin with the butter mixture alternately with the cream.

  3. Add the beaten eggs gradually, mixing well.

  4. Stir in the rose water, wine, mace, cinnamon, and grated nutmeg.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a buttered pie dish and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 45 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  4. Butter + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  5. Pumpkin + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set the custard as they cook, giving the filling its structure and body.
Pumpkin
Provides the bulk, moisture and flavor base of the filling.
Cream
Adds richness and fat, producing a smoother, softer texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the savory spices.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a silky mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Adding the beaten eggs gradually, mixing well. Eggs set into the custard when heated. Adding them slowly and mixing thoroughly keeps the batter evenly blended so the filling bakes smooth rather than lumpy or curdled.

Swap the pumpkin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, milk, sugar, cream, egg, rose, wine):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raspberryfits better
  3. Strawberryfits better
  4. Pumpkinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, milk, sugar, cream, egg, rose, wine. 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

Cinnamon RollsCinnamon Rolls71 recipesCinnamon CakeCinnamon Cake42 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipes