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Dessert

Pumpkin Pies

A pie made with boiled pumpkin, sugar, butter, eggs, milk, flour, cinnamon, and a crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pumpkin and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,744 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Pumpkin Pies

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pumpkin

  1. Cut the pumpkin into squares and boil until soft.

  2. Strain the pumpkin through a sieve while hot.

Make the filling

  1. Mix in the sugar and butter until combined.

  2. Once cooler, add the eggs, milk, flour, and cinnamon.

  3. Line pie plates with the pie crust.

  4. Fill the crusts with the pumpkin mixture and bake.

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

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

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon 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

Pumpkin
Provides the main body and flavor of the filling once cooked and strained.
Eggs
Set the custard as they cook, giving the filling structure when baked.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps give it a smooth texture.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, contributing to a smooth, tender filling.
Flour
Thickens the filling and helps it hold its shape after baking.
Milk
Adds moisture and body, helping form a creamy custard with the eggs.

The step that matters

Let the pumpkin cool before adding the eggs. Adding eggs to very hot pumpkin can begin cooking them unevenly and cause curdling. Cooling first helps the custard set smoothly when baked.

Swap the pumpkin

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

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

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