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Dessert

Pumpkin Pie

A baked pumpkin pie with flour, spices, milk, eggs, butter, and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon 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

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 pumpkin

  1. Peel and boil the pumpkin with just enough water to prevent burning for about 30 minutes until tender.

  2. Drain the pumpkin and mash it.

Make the filling

  1. In a bowl, combine the mashed pumpkin, flour, liquor, grated nutmeg, cinnamon, mace, milk, eggs, cloves, butter, ginger, salt, sugar, lemon rind, and lemon juice. Mix well until smooth.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a prepared pie crust and bake at 350°F (175°C) 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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 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. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  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
Forms the bulk of the filling and gives the pie its body and flavour.
Eggs
Set when baked, giving the filling structure so it firms into a sliceable custard.
Milk
Adds moisture and richness and helps the filling set into a smooth custard.
Flour
Thickens the filling and helps it hold its shape when cut.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother, more tender texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and balances the spices and lemon.

The step that matters

Bake until set. Eggs and pumpkin firm as they heat, and overbaking can make the custard grainy or cracked, while underbaking leaves it runny. Watch for the centre to barely wobble.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pumpkin, flour, nutmeg, cinnamon, milk, clove, butter):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pumpkin, flour, nutmeg, cinnamon, milk, clove, butter. 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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