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Dessert

Sweet Potato Pone

A baked sweet potato cake made with grated sweet potato, sugar or molasses, butter, ginger, cloves, cinnamon, sweet milk, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon 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 ↓

Sweet Potato Pone

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the batter

  1. In a mixing bowl, combine the grated sweet potato, sugar or molasses, butter, ginger, cloves, cinnamon, sweet milk, salt, and black pepper. Mix well until all ingredients are combined.

  2. Pour the mixture into a well-greased baking dish.

Bake

  1. Bake for 2 hours or 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. Clove + cinnamontop 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. Sweet potato + cinnamontop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together539 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Sweet potato
Forms the body of the pone and provides starch and moisture for the texture.
Sugar or molasses
Adds sweetness and helps the top brown during baking.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender, smooth crumb.
Sweet milk
Adds liquid that moistens the mixture and helps it set into a custard-like texture.
Eggs (in the method)
Not in the record; omitted.

The step that matters

Bake for 2 hours or until set. The pone sets as the starches gelatinize and the liquid firms around them. Pulling it too early leaves a wet, loose center, while over-baking can dry the edges.

Swap the sweet potato

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Sweet potatothe original
  3. Carrotfits about as well
  4. Parsnipfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, ginger, clove, cinnamon, milk, pepper. 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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