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Dessert

Pumpkin Pie

A baked pie made with eggs, cream, cooked pumpkin, water, saccharin, salt, cinnamon, and mixed spice.

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 Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

  1. Beat the eggs in a bowl.

  2. Add the cream, cooked pumpkin, water, saccharin, salt, cinnamon, and mixed spice; mix well.

  3. Pour the mixture into a pie plate lined with pastry.

  4. Bake in a moderate oven 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. Pumpkin + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,744 recipes

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

  2. Egg + pumpkintop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,985 recipes

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

  3. Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  4. Cream + cinnamontop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,510 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

  5. Egg + cinnamontop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,058 recipes

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

Egg and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 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

Eggs
Set the filling into a firm custard as they cook and coagulate.
Cooked pumpkin
Provides the main body, moisture, and characteristic pumpkin flavour of the filling.
Cream
Adds richness and fat for a smoother, silkier texture.
Saccharin
Adds sweetness without sugar, balancing the spices and pumpkin.
Cinnamon
Adds warm, aromatic spice flavour to the filling.

The step that matters

Bake in a moderate oven until set. Eggs set as their proteins coagulate with heat. Stopping when the centre is just set, rather than fully firm, keeps the custard smooth and prevents it from curdling, cracking, or weeping.

Swap the cinnamon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, cream, pumpkin):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cinnamonthe original
  3. Capersfits less well
  4. Tarragonfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, cream, pumpkin. 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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