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Dessert

Sweet Potato Pie

A pie made with boiled sweet potatoes, eggs, butter, sugar, lemon, nutmeg, wine, brandy, and rich flaky pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Sweet potato and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 414 recipes. Both carry linalool, which smells floral, citrus. The science ↓

Sweet Potato Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Make a rich flaky pastry.

  2. Boil and mash the sweet potatoes.

  3. In a bowl, beat the eggs until very light.

  4. Add the beaten eggs to the mashed sweet potatoes.

Make the filling

  1. Mix in the butter, sugar, lemon peel, lemon juice, nutmeg, wine, and brandy. Combine all ingredients well.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into the prepared pastry and bake.

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. Sweet potato + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together414 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  2. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Wine + brandytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,427 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  4. Sweet potato + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together314 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Lemon + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,157 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Sweet potatoes
Form the bulk of the filling and give the pie its body and moisture.
Eggs
Bind the filling and help it set as it bakes.
Butter
Adds richness and fat for a tender, smooth texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the lemon and spirits.
Lemon peel
Contributes aromatic oils and bright citrus flavour.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweet filling.

The step that matters

Beat the eggs until very light. Beaten eggs trap air and blend evenly into the mashed potato, so the filling bakes smooth and set rather than dense or streaked.

Swap the sweet potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, butter, sugar, lemon, nutmeg, wine, brandy):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Arrowrootfits about as well
  3. Sweet potatothe original
  4. Chivefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, sugar, lemon, nutmeg, wine, brandy. 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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