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Dessert

Pumpkin Pie

A baked pie made with pumpkin pulp, milk, spices, molasses, eggs, and a crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and ginger 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 Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the pumpkin

  1. Cut the pumpkin into small pieces and remove the soft part and seeds.

  2. Cover and cook the pumpkin slowly in its own steam until tender.

  3. Remove the cover and reduce the pumpkin to almost dryness, being careful not to burn it.

  4. Press the cooked pumpkin through a colander.

Make the filling

  1. In a bowl, combine 2 ½ cups of pumpkin pulp, 2 cups of milk, 1 teaspoon of salt, 1 teaspoon of butter, 1 teaspoon of cinnamon, 1 teaspoon of ginger, 1 tablespoon of molasses, and sugar to taste.

  2. Add the beaten eggs last, after the mixture has cooled.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into an open pie crust and bake at 300 °F (150 °C) for 40 to 50 minutes.

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. Cinnamon + gingertop 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

Pumpkin pulp
Forms the body of the filling and gives the pie its characteristic flavour and soft texture.
Eggs
Set during baking to give the filling structure so it firms into a sliceable custard.
Milk
Adds liquid and richness, helping the filling become smooth and creamy as it bakes.
Molasses
Adds dark sweetness and a deeper, caramel-like flavour to the spiced filling.
Butter
Adds fat, contributing richness and a smoother mouthfeel to the filling.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool before adding the eggs. Eggs added to a hot mixture can begin to scramble or cook unevenly, which weakens the smooth set of the custard filling.

Swap the pumpkin

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, cinnamon, ginger, molasses, egg, 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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