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Dessert

Pumpkin Butter

A sweet spread made from pumpkin pulp, brown sugar, cider, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 Butter

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pulp

  1. Bake the pumpkin as you would for pumpkin pie.

  2. Run the baked pumpkin through a fine colander to obtain the pulp.

Cook the butter

  1. In a pot, combine 3 quarts of pumpkin pulp, 2 quarts of light brown sugar, and 1 cup of boiled cider.

  2. Boil the mixture slowly, stirring well until it is smooth and glossy, or as thick as good apple butter.

  3. Add cinnamon, cloves, spice, and nutmeg to taste.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Orange + cinnamontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,437 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Pumpkin pulp
Forms the bulk of the butter and provides its body and moisture as it cooks down.
Light brown sugar
Adds sweetness and molasses flavour, and helps the butter thicken and turn glossy.
Boiled cider
Adds concentrated apple tang and acidity that brightens the sweet pumpkin.

The step that matters

Boil the mixture slowly while stirring. Pumpkin is wet and sugar can scorch on the bottom of the pot. Slow heat and constant stirring let the water evaporate evenly and keep the butter from burning before it reaches a smooth, thick texture.

Swap the pumpkin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (orange, sugar, cider, cinnamon, clove, nutmeg):

  1. Applefits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Pumpkinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against orange, sugar, cider, cinnamon, clove, nutmeg. 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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