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Dessert

Pumpkin Pie

A sweet pie made with cooked pumpkin, ginger, butter, nutmeg, milk, sugar, and egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,324 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Pumpkin Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the filling

  1. Boil and strain the pumpkin.

  2. Mix in ginger, butter, nutmeg, milk, and sugar.

  3. Quickly beat in the egg.

Fill and bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a pie crust.

  2. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 20 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. Ginger + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Pumpkin
Provides the bulk and body of the filling, along with most of its flavor and color.
Egg
Sets the filling as it bakes, giving it structure so it can be sliced.
Milk
Adds moisture and creaminess, keeping the filling smooth and tender rather than dry.
Butter
Adds fat, which contributes richness and a softer, smoother mouthfeel.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the earthy flavor of the pumpkin.
Ginger
Adds warm, aromatic spice that gives the pie its characteristic flavor.

The step that matters

Quickly beat in the egg.. The egg is what sets the filling when baked. Its proteins coagulate on heating, so it should be blended in evenly and without delay. Unevenly mixed egg can leave the filling set in patches or baked unevenly.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Allspicefits about as well
  4. Gingerthe original

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