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Dessert

Sweet Potato Pudding

A baked sweet potato pudding with eggs, sugar, butter, brandy, nutmeg, cinnamon, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Sweet Potato Pudding

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.

Make the batter

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

  2. In a bowl, combine the mashed sweet potatoes, beaten eggs, sugar, and softened butter until light and fluffy.

  3. Add the brandy, grated nutmeg, and cinnamon, mixing well.

  4. Stir in enough milk to achieve a proper consistency.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a baking dish and bake for about 20 minutes, or until light brown.

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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Sweet potato + cinnamontop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together539 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

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

  5. Cinnamon + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Sweet potatoes
Provide the bulk and moisture that give the pudding its soft, dense body.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help it set as it bakes.
Butter
Adds richness and a tender texture to the pudding.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and helps it brown at the surface.

The step that matters

Stir in milk to the right consistency. Sweet potato varies in moisture, so the batter must be loose enough to pour but not runny. Too little liquid makes a dry, dense pudding, while too much stops it from setting firmly in the oven.

“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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