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Dessert

Pumpkin Pies

A baked pumpkin custard filling in a lard crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

Pumpkin Pies

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. In a bowl, mix the pumpkin, milk, sugar, flour, baking powder, cinnamon, salt, nutmeg, and beaten eggs until well combined.

  3. For the pie crust, mix the flour and lard with ice‑cold water until a dough forms.

  4. Roll out the dough and fit it into a pie pan.

Bake

  1. Pour the pumpkin mixture into the crust.

  2. Bake in the preheated oven until set, about 30‑40 minutes.

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

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

  3. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + cinnamontop 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

Eggs
Bind the filling and help it set into a firm, sliceable custard when baked.
Pumpkin
Provides the bulk, moisture and main flavour of the filling.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the spices in the filling.
Lard
Adds fat that keeps the pie crust tender and flaky.
Milk
Adds moisture and richness, helping the filling set smoothly.

The step that matters

Bake until set. Eggs thicken the filling as they heat; underbaking leaves it runny, while overbaking can make it cracked and grainy. Check for a set centre rather than relying on time alone.

Swap the pumpkin

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

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

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