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Dessert

Pumpkin Pudding

A baked pumpkin custard made with butter, sugar, milk, wine, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Pumpkin Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the filling

  1. Mix the sweet milk and stewed pumpkin in a bowl.

  2. Add the sugar, well-beaten eggs, and melted butter; stir until combined.

  3. Place the mixture in a saucepan over hot water and stir until it thickens.

  4. Once cool, add the wine.

Bake

  1. Line plates with pastry and pour the mixture in.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Pumpkin + nutmegtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,126 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Butter + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  4. Pumpkin + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).

  5. Milk + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,685 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set the custard as they cook, giving the pudding structure and body.
Stewed pumpkin
Provides the main bulk, moisture and pumpkin flavour of the filling.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, tender texture to the filling.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the custard brown lightly as it bakes.
Sweet milk
Thins the filling and adds moisture and creamy body.

The step that matters

Thickening over hot water. Stirring gently over hot water heats the eggs slowly so they thicken into a smooth custard. If the heat is too high, the eggs can scramble and turn grainy, so the mixture should be stirred steadily until it just thickens.

Swap the pumpkin

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, milk, wine, 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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