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Dessert

Macon Sweet Potato Pie

A pie made with boiled sweet potatoes, butter, sugar, cloves, and brandy, topped with a rich pie crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sweet potato and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 228 recipes. Both carry ethyl benzoate, which smells fruity, sweet. The science ↓

Macon Sweet Potato 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.

Prepare

  1. Boil sweet potatoes until tender.

  2. Line a pie dish with a rich pie crust.

  3. Slice the sweet potatoes very thin.

Assemble

  1. Season the potatoes with butter, sugar, and cloves.

  2. Pour a little brandy over the top.

  3. Cover with another layer of pie crust.

Bake

  1. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for about the same time as an apple pie.

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 + clovetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together228 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl benzoate (fruity, sweet).

  2. Clove + brandytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,362 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Butter + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,127 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Sweet potato + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,151 recipes

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

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Sweet potatoes
Form the main filling, providing bulk, moisture, and natural sweetness.
Rich pie crust
Forms the top and bottom shell that holds the filling and browns in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, moist texture in the filling.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the crust and filling brown during baking.
Cloves
Adds a warm, aromatic spice flavour to the filling.
Brandy
Adds a sharp aromatic note that deepens the flavour of the filling.

The step that matters

Slice the sweet potatoes very thin. Thin slices cook through evenly and soften during baking, so the filling sets tender without firm or raw pieces.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sweet potato, butter, sugar, brandy):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Gingerfits about as well
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sweet potato, butter, sugar, 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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