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Dessert

Pumpkin Pie

A baked pie made with pumpkin, eggs, milk, sugar, lemon rind, cinnamon, ginger, and short crust pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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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

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderately hot oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the filling

  1. Peel and slice the pumpkin, remove the seeds, and boil it in slightly salted water until tender.

  2. Pass the cooked pumpkin through a fine sieve.

  3. Beat the eggs and add them to the pumpkin, sweetening to taste.

  4. Stir in the lemon rind, cinnamon, and ginger.

  5. Gradually mix in enough milk to achieve a thick batter consistency.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a pie dish lined with short crust paste.

  2. Cover and bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 40 to 45 minutes.

  3. Serve hot.

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. Lemon + gingertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,154 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  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

Pumpkin
Forms the bulk of the filling and gives the pie its body and flavor.
Eggs
Set when baked, giving the pumpkin filling its structure and firm custard texture.
Milk
Adds moisture and loosens the batter to a pourable, thick consistency.
Castor sugar
Sweetens the filling and balances the earthy flavor of the pumpkin.

The step that matters

Gradually mix in enough milk. Adding milk slowly lets you judge the batter's thickness. Too much liquid stops the egg-thickened filling from setting firmly, so it may stay runny or split after baking.

Swap the pumpkin

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, milk, sugar, lemon, 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.

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