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Dessert

Pumpkin Pies

A custard pie made with pumpkin, milk, sugar, butter, ginger, cinnamon, eggs, baked in a pie crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,380 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Pumpkin Pies

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.

Prepare the pumpkin

  1. Cut pumpkin into pieces without peeling.

  2. Bake pumpkin in the oven until soft.

  3. Scrape pumpkin from shell.

  4. Rub through a colander or steam and strain.

Make the filling

  1. Beat egg yolks thoroughly.

  2. Mix with milk, pumpkin, sugar, butter, ginger, and cinnamon.

  3. Fold in well-beaten egg whites.

Bake

  1. Pour mixture into pie crust.

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  3. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Yolks and whites add richness and help the filling thicken and set as it bakes.
Pumpkin
Provides the bulk, flavor and moisture of the filling.
Rich milk
Adds moisture and richness, and helps the custard set smoothly.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the spices.

The step that matters

Baking until set. Egg proteins coagulate as the custard heats, so underbaking leaves a runny filling while overbaking can make it cracked or grainy. Bake until just set, with the center still slightly wobbly.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Gingerthe original
  4. Clovefits about as well

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