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Silky Smooth Pumpkin Pie

Is pumpkin pie as we know it broken? This is what I was asking myself at 10 p.m. last night as I had words I will only express in asterisks going through my head as I was in my twentieth minute of trying to push a pumpkin pie filling through a very fine mesh strainer.

This recipe’s ingredient list has no crust or pastry, so it bakes more like a fruit dish than a pastry pie.

By smittenkitchen · From Open Recipes · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Pumpkin and yam share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and 26 recipes mention both. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: egg, milk (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Step-by-step directions aren't available for this recipe. See the full recipe at the source →

By smittenkitchen. Recipe from Open Recipes.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Pumpkin + yamtop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together26 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Milk + vanillatop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together19,175 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  3. Pumpkin + maple syruptop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together256 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

  4. Vanilla + sugartop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together35,031 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Vanilla + maple syruptop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together752 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Vanilla and sugar share little aroma chemistry, yet 35,031 recipes mention both: they likely work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

Flavor stand-ins for the yam

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, milk, egg, vanilla, pumpkin, sugar, maple syrup):

  1. Sweet potatobetter flavor fit
  2. Potatobetter flavor fit
  3. Capsicumbetter flavor fit
  4. Yamthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, milk, egg, vanilla, pumpkin, sugar, maple syrup. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).