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Dessert

Pumpkin Pies

A baked pie made with pumpkin, sweet milk, eggs, corn starch, sugar, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,324 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Pumpkin Pies

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the filling

  1. Peel and cut the pumpkin into small pieces.

  2. Stew the pumpkin pieces slowly until soft, then strain to obtain the pulp.

  3. In a bowl, mix the pumpkin pulp with sweet milk, eggs, and corn starch that has been mixed smooth with a little milk.

  4. Add coarse sea salt, sugar, ginger, and grated nutmeg to taste.

  5. If desired, substitute part of the sweet milk with cream for a richer flavor.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a pie crust and 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. Nutmeg + gingertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Pumpkin + gingertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,158 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  4. Corn + nutmegtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together563 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Corn + gingertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together412 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Pumpkin
Forms the bulk of the filling and gives the pie its body and flavor.
Eggs
Set during baking to give the custard structure and a firm, sliceable texture.
Sweet milk
Provides the liquid base that cooks into a smooth, creamy custard.
Corn starch
Thickens the filling so it holds its shape when cut instead of running.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the savory notes of the pumpkin and spices.

The step that matters

Baking until set. Eggs and starch thicken the custard as it heats. Underbaking leaves a runny center, while overbaking can cause the custard to crack or weep.

Swap the pumpkin

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Pumpkinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg, corn, sugar, nutmeg, ginger. 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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