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Dessert

Good Pumpkin Pie

A sweet pumpkin filling baked in a pastry crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,380 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Good Pumpkin Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the pumpkin

  1. Peel the pumpkin and cut it into small pieces.

  2. Boil it with a little water until very soft.

  3. Mash the pumpkin through a colander or use canned pumpkin.

Make the filling

  1. In a bowl, mix the pumpkin, sugar, molasses, cinnamon, ginger, salt, and flour until well combined.

  2. Beat the eggs and add them to the mixture.

  3. Stir in the milk.

Bake

  1. Line a deep pie tin with puff pastry or pie dough.

  2. Pour in the filling.

  3. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) until light brown.

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  3. Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Cinnamon + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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, along with its flavour and moisture.
Eggs
Set the filling into a firm custard structure as they cook.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the pie brown at the surface.
Milk
Adds moisture and richness, softening the custard texture.
Flour
Thickens the filling slightly and helps it hold its shape.
Molasses
Adds deep sweetness, colour and a robust flavour to the filling.

The step that matters

Bake until light brown. Eggs set as the filling heats, so baking too briefly leaves it runny, while overbaking can make the custard grainy and cracked. Watch for the surface to turn light brown and the centre to look just set.

Swap the pumpkin

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, molasses, egg, cinnamon, ginger, flour, 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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