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Dessert

Squash Pie

A baked pie with a pumpkin filling made from cooked pumpkin, eggs, sugar, spices, milk, and folded egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 pumpkin

  1. Cook the pumpkin in a pot over moderate heat, stirring frequently until dry, about 15 minutes.

  2. Press the cooked pumpkin through a coarse sieve using a potato masher.

Make the filling

  1. In a bowl, beat the egg yolks and mix in the brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger (if using), and salt until creamy.

  2. Combine the pumpkin with the egg yolk mixture and add the milk.

  3. Beat the egg whites until stiff and fold them into the pumpkin mixture.

Bake and serve

  1. Prepare a pie crust and roll it out thinly.

  2. Pour the filling into the crust and bake at 350°F (175°C) until the center is firm.

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 + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  4. Nutmeg + gingertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Pumpkin + gingertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,158 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Pumpkin
Provides the bulk and body of the filling once cooked and sieved smooth.
Eggs
Yolks thicken and set the custard, while whipped whites add lightness and airiness.
Milk
Adds moisture and liquid so the filling sets into a creamy custard.
Light brown sugar
Adds sweetness and a molasses note that complements the pumpkin.

The step that matters

Bake until the center is firm. Egg proteins set as the custard heats, so underbaking leaves a runny center while overbaking can cause curdling, cracking, or a rubbery texture.

Swap the ginger

The recipe marks ginger as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pumpkin, egg, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, milk):

  1. Cardamomfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Clovefits about as well
  4. Gingerthe original

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