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Dessert

Pumpkin Pie

A custard pie made with pumpkin, milk, eggs, spices, and baked in pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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 Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the pumpkin

  1. Peel and cut the pumpkin into pieces.

  2. Cook the pumpkin slowly for 4–5 hours with enough water to prevent burning.

  3. Mash the cooked pumpkin and strain it through a colander.

Make the custard

  1. In a bowl, combine 2 cups of strained pumpkin with 2 cups of boiling milk, ½ teaspoon salt, ginger, cinnamon, mace, and nutmeg.

  2. Beat 5 eggs and stir them into 1 cup of cream.

  3. Add sugar to sweeten the mixture.

Bake and serve

  1. Line pie plates with pastry and brush the crust with egg white.

  2. Crimp the edges.

  3. Fill the crust with the pumpkin custard.

  4. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven until firm and 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 + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Ginger + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

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

  5. Ginger + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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 and its sweet, earthy flavor.
Eggs
Set the custard as they cook, giving the filling its firm, sliceable structure.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness, diluting the eggs so the custard stays tender.
Cream
Adds richness and fat, giving the custard a smoother, silkier texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and helps it brown lightly during baking.

The step that matters

Baking until firm. Eggs set as they heat, so underbaking leaves the custard runny, while overbaking can make it cracked and grainy. Watch for a firm set with a slight wobble in the centre.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Cardamomfits better
  2. Clovefits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pumpkin, milk, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, egg, cream. 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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