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Dessert

Sweet Potato Pudding

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

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 Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Beat the butter and sugar until light.

  2. Add the mashed sweet potato in two parts, mixing well.

  3. Whisk the eggs until thick, then gradually stir them in.

  4. Add the wine, brandy, nutmeg, cinnamon, and mix well.

  5. Set the mixture in a cool place for a short time.

Bake and serve

  1. Line your plates with a rich pastry, rolling it thinner in the center than at the edges.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) until done.

  3. Once cool, slip the puddings into plates for serving.

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

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

  3. Brandy + winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,427 recipes

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

  4. Butter + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  5. Milk + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,685 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creams with sugar to trap air, giving the pudding a light, tender body and rich flavor.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and helps create a light, airy texture when beaten with butter.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and set during baking, giving the pudding structure.
Sweet potato
Provides the main bulk, moisture, and natural sweetness of the filling.
Milk
Adds moisture so the mixture bakes soft rather than dry.

The step that matters

Whisk the eggs until thick, then gradually stir them in.. Thick whisked eggs hold air that lightens the batter; adding them gradually keeps the mixture smooth and prevents the butter-sugar base from curdling or deflating.

Swap the sweet potato

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

  1. Sweet potatothe original
  2. Shallotfits about as well
  3. Potatofits about as well
  4. Capsicumfits about as well

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