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Dessert

Pumpkin Pie

A baked pie with a pumpkin filling made from steamed pumpkin, eggs, sugar, molasses, crackers, spices, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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

Make the filling

  1. Combine the steamed pumpkin, eggs, sugar, molasses, rolled crackers, ginger, nutmeg, cinnamon, and salt in a pan.

  2. Stir well and add enough rich milk to thin the mixture.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a pastry shell.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Pumpkin
Provides the bulk, body and sweet flavor of the filling.
Eggs
Set during baking to give the filling its firm, sliceable structure.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps keep it moist and tender.
Molasses
Adds depth, dark color and a rich, slightly bitter sweetness.
Rolled crackers
Absorb liquid and help thicken the filling so it holds its shape.
Rich milk
Thins the mixture to a pourable custard that bakes smoothly.

The step that matters

Bake until set. Eggs firm as they heat, so underbaking leaves the filling runny while overbaking can make it cracked and grainy. Look for a center that wobbles slightly but no longer sloshes.

Swap the pumpkin

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

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

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