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Dessert

Delicious Pumpkin Pie

A baked pie filled with a pumpkin custard made from eggs, sugar, butter, cinnamon, and orange extract.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,437 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Delicious 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.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make and bake the filling

  1. In a bowl, mix the eggs, strained pumpkin, sugar, butter, cinnamon, and orange extract until well combined.

  2. Pour the mixture into a prepared pie crust.

  3. Bake in the preheated oven until set and lightly browned.

Cool and serve

  1. Allow to cool before serving.

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 + orangetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,437 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Butter + cinnamontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,784 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

  5. Pumpkin + orangetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together266 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

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

Eggs
Set the filling into a firm custard as they cook.
Strained pumpkin
Provides the bulk, moisture and body of the filling.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and adds to its browning.
Butter
Adds fat for a smoother, richer texture.
Cinnamon
Adds warm spice aroma to the filling.

The step that matters

Bake until just set. Eggs keep setting as the pie cools, so overbaking can make the filling cracked, grainy or watery. Pull it out when the center still jiggles slightly and only the edges look firm.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Datesfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, pumpkin, sugar, butter, 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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