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Dessert

Squash-pie

A baked pie made with stewed squash or pumpkin, milk, flour, sugar, salt, and lemon rind or nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Squash-pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

Make the filling

  1. In a large bowl, combine the stewed and sifted squash or pumpkin, milk, sifted flour, sugar, salt, and grated lemon rind or nutmeg. Mix until well combined.

  2. Pour the mixture into deep pie plates.

Bake

  1. Bake in the preheated oven 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. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).

  3. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Squash or pumpkin
Provides the main body and flavour of the filling.
Milk
Adds liquid and richness, helping the filling set into a custard.
Flour
Thickens the filling so it holds its shape when baked.
Eggs (in the method)
Not in the record; omitted.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps soften the set texture.

The step that matters

Bake until set. Underbaking leaves the filling runny, while overbaking can make it cracked and grainy. The filling sets as its proteins and starches firm up with heat, so watch for a center that barely wobbles.

Swap the pumpkin

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

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

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