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Dessert

Pumpkin Pie. No. 2

A baked custard of stewed pumpkin, eggs, milk, spices, and sugar in a pie crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg 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. No. 2

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.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the filling

  1. In a large bowl, beat the egg yolks and whites separately.

  2. Combine the stewed pumpkin, milk, mace, cinnamon, nutmeg, and sugar with the beaten eggs. Mix well until fully combined.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into the pie crust.

  2. Bake without a cover 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 + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

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

  4. Mace + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  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

Eggs
Egg yolks and whites set the custard, giving the filling its structure as it bakes.
Stewed pumpkin
Provides the bulk, moisture and main flavour of the filling.
Milk
Adds liquid and richness, helping the custard set into a smooth texture.
White sugar or very light brown sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the spices in the filling.

The step that matters

Bake without a cover until set. Eggs set as they heat; baking until just set gives a firm, smooth custard, while overbaking can cause cracking or a grainy, weeping texture.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pumpkin, egg, milk, cinnamon, nutmeg, sugar, 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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