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Dessert

Squash Pie

A baked pie made with squash, sweet milk, spices, eggs, and a crust.

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 ↓

Squash 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.

Prepare the filling

  1. Peel the squash and remove the seeds.

  2. Stew the squash until soft and dry.

  3. Pass the squash through a colander to make a pulp.

  4. Stir in enough sweet milk to achieve a thick batter consistency.

  5. Add ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, and sugar to taste.

  6. Incorporate the beaten eggs into the mixture.

Bake

  1. Fill a pie plate lined with crust with the mixture.

  2. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for about an hour.

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. Ginger + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Ginger + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Cinnamon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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
Forms the bulk of the filling, giving the pie its body and mild sweetness.
Eggs
Set when baked, binding the pulp into a firm, sliceable custard.
Sweet milk
Loosens the pulp into a thick batter and adds moisture and richness.
Ground ginger
Adds warm, spicy aroma to the filling.
Ground cinnamon
Adds warm, sweet aroma that complements the squash.
Ground nutmeg
Adds a warm, aromatic spice note to the filling.

The step that matters

Stewing the squash until soft and dry. Excess water in the squash would thin the batter and keep the eggs from setting firmly, so the pulp should be cooked down well before mixing.

Swap the ginger

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

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

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