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Dessert

Pumpkin Pie

A custard-style pie made with mashed pumpkin, milk, eggs, spices, and a pastry crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon 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

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pumpkin

  1. Peel and boil the pumpkin with just enough water to prevent burning for about 30 minutes until tender.

  2. Drain the pumpkin very dry and mash it through a colander or coarse sieve.

Make the custard

  1. Bring the milk to a boil and blend the flour with a little cold water.

  2. Stir the flour mixture into the boiling milk and cook for about 3 minutes until thick.

  3. In a bowl, mix the thickened milk with the hot pumpkin.

  4. Add the spices, sugar, lemon peel, juice, liquor, and lastly the eggs mixed smooth with a little cold water.

Bake and serve

  1. Prepare your pie dishes lined with very thin pastry, adding 1 or 2 extra layers to the edges.

  2. Pour the mixture into the pastry, ensuring it is nearly 1 inch deep.

  3. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes.

  4. Brush the edges with a little beaten egg and return to the oven until nicely browned.

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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 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. Nutmeg + macetop 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. Nutmeg + gingertop 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, setting into a soft, sliceable custard when baked.
Eggs
Set the custard as they cook, giving the filling its structure and firm texture.
Flour
Thickens the milk before the pumpkin is added, giving the filling a smooth, stable body.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard, adding richness and softness to the filling.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother mouthfeel in the filling.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the spices and lemon acidity.

The step that matters

Drain the pumpkin very dry. Excess water dilutes the custard and stops it setting firmly, so the pie can turn runny or soggy. Mashing it through a sieve also keeps the texture smooth.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pumpkin, flour, butter, nutmeg, ginger, cinnamon, sugar. 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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