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Dessert

Pumpkin Pie

A custard pie made with eggs, sugar, stewed pumpkin, spices, and milk baked in a pie crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Pumpkin Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderately hot oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the filling

  1. Beat the eggs in a bowl.

  2. Add the sugar, pumpkin, and spices to the eggs and beat thoroughly.

  3. Mix in the milk until well combined.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a raw pie crust.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for thirty minutes or more.

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 + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  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

Eggs
Coagulate as they heat, setting the custard into a sliceable structure.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the savoury spices and pumpkin.
Pumpkin
Supplies bulk, moisture, and the main flavour and colour of the filling.
Milk
Adds moisture and a smooth, tender custard texture once set.

The step that matters

Baking the filling. Egg proteins set as the custard heats, so baking too hot or too long can make it curdle, crack, or weep. Bake until the centre is just set and still slightly wobbly, since it firms further as it cools.

Swap the pumpkin

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, ginger, cinnamon, clove, 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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