Skip to main content
Dessert

Sliced Potato Pie

A baked sweet potato pie with raisins, brandy, nutmeg, and a meringue topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Sliced Potato Pie

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).

  2. Mash the boiled sweet potatoes in a bowl.

Make the filling

  1. In a separate bowl, beat the egg and mix in the sweet milk and melted butter.

  2. Pour the egg mixture over the mashed potatoes.

  3. Add the brandy, raisins, and grated nutmeg; mix well.

Bake

  1. Transfer the mixture to a pie dish and cover with meringue.

  2. Bake until the meringue is golden.

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. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

  3. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  4. Sweet potato + raisintop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together19 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Brandy + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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, giving the pie its body and soft, moist texture.
Egg
Binds the filling and helps it set firm as it bakes.
Sweet milk
Adds moisture and richness, helping the filling become smooth and custard-like.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender, silky mouthfeel.
Raisins
Add pockets of concentrated sweetness and chewy texture.

The step that matters

Bake until the meringue is golden. Baking until the meringue is golden browns its sugars through the Maillard reaction and sets the topping. Pulling it too early leaves a pale, soft meringue, while over-baking can make it weep or toughen.

Swap the sweet potato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, milk, butter, brandy, raisin, 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.

More sweet potato pie recipes

Southern 5 See all 114 →

You might also like

Deep-Fried Potato BallsDeep-Fried Potato Balls119 recipesOrange Potato BreadOrange Potato Bread80 recipesBrandy PeachesBrandy Peaches68 recipesBrandy CreamBrandy Cream21 recipes